Fall in Love

The key that unlocks your chains, that removes your blindfold, is relationship. The secret to come out from hiding and to live for a greater pleasure is simply this: to fall in love. This relationship is superior to all others. I argue today that if the primary thing keeping you from running to the sins you love is the prospect of shame or of being exposed, you’ll never consistently beat it. Oh, these reasons may work for a while, but the relentless pursuit of the Evil One will eventually catch you and you’ll cave in. All of the good sense and logic and prohibitions against your sins will never work. Self-denial alone will not work. Something more is needed to energize our hearts toward what is right. That something more is a Someone. The fight against the sins we love is really a fight to stay satisfied with God (Storms, Pleasures Evermore: The Life-Changing Power of Enjoying God27) – to love the story that He has caught us up into.

Sin – God’s Gifts with a Twist

Paul said in Romans “I do what I hate and I avoid what I love (7:19).” We know what’s right but we won’t do it. It’s easier to do wrong than it is to do right. This tendency drives all of us to brokenness and self-destruction. We are sinners and by that I mean that we have a chronic condition. We don’t reveal Gods glory like we once did, nor do our lives serve his purposes. We contradict His design for how things ought to be because our good hearts have become depraved and distorted. The issue of sin is all about distortion or a perversion of the good. For example, God calls us to work and be productive in order to make a better world; we twist the call into workaholism. God calls us to enjoy the gift of sex; we have twisted it and distorted it into an act of selfish gratification and lust, rather than intimacy with a life partner. God calls us to enjoy food and things; we are now suffocating in our stuff and shortening our life-spans because of our eating habits. God calls us to love. Love is a good thing, but perverted, possessive love results in pride, envy, rage and control over others. Insufficient love results in sloth and apathy; we don’t love the right things with passion – like God, His Word, His World, His Priority. Excessive love of things in the world leads to greed, gluttony, and lust (Rowland, The Sins We Love: Embracing Brokeness, Hoping for Wholeness7). I like what God has provided, but I want more. So sin is a distortion and a perversion of the good – it’s God’s gifts with a twist. It’s right to be hungry, but not be a glutton. It’s right to desire intimacy and sexual relationship, but not to consume someone for your pleasure alone. It’s right to renew and recreate, but not to be given to laziness and sloth. It’s right to love your work, but not to be a workaholic. It’s right to acquire things, but not to serve things.