Comfortable With Sin

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1, NIV).

I love my living room furniture! It’s stylish, lightweight, and most of all, super comfortable. I especially love my “Jesus chair”. It was actually a piece of furniture I bought for my small apartment when I still lived in Lexington, a year before I purchased my home.

In my chair is where I spend my first quiet moments every morning. It’s where I crash in the evenings after a long day of work. It’s where I currently sit as I’m typing this blog post! I once would have thought it interesting to say that a piece of furniture has been a huge blessing in my life, but it’s absolutely true, and it’s a gift.

This gift, however, if I’m not careful, can easily become a trap. While it’s true that the chair has been a blessing, it’s also a place where comfort can keep me stagnant. I can end up spending hours lying here watching TV, reading, and scrolling through social media. While rest is not a bad thing, it can become a destructive thing when it pulls me into complacency, and laziness. Before I know it, I’ve allowed myself to become comfortable in a way that leads to sin. Proverbs 13:4 reminds us: The soul of the lazy man desires, and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.

I love this verse, because I don’t think it applies strictly to being lazy in the physical sense. When I reflect upon this in a spiritual way, it gives me pause, and I find myself thinking about areas of my life where I’ve allowed myself to become comfortable with sin.

What kind of TV am I watching, and what kind of music am I listening to?How much time am I spending on social media, and how are those messages penetrating my heart? Who am I spending my time with, and how are they impacting my desire and ability to be a representative of Christ?

I am not suggesting that we should live our lives with the expectation of perfection. Sin itself is unavoidable. We are all sinners, saved by the blood of Jesus. However, when we choose to place our faith in Christ, and accept salvation, our hearts begin to undergo a process of sanctification whereby we grow, heal, and become set apart for a specific purpose designed by God.

Enter Satan. The enemy is deceitful, and very deliberate. One of his ultimate goals is to blind us to the truth of God’s grace, mercy, and love. He attempts to lure us into a state of complacency where we begin to accept things in our lives that we know God doesn’t want for us, or for those around us that we love. Today is an opportunity for all of us to step back and ask these questions:

What sin have I allowed myself to become comfortable with? Where has complacency stepped in to carry more weight than confrontation in the name of Jesus? How has my decision to “sit in sin” kept me from stepping into the plans God has for my life?

May we be mindful today not to fall into the trap of comfort, which may cause us to settle for less than what we know God wants for our life. Romans 8:1 says: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Condemnation is not the intent here, but rather to remind all of us to consider areas of our life where we have become comfortable with sin.

When we pray, and ask God to reveal those areas to our hearts, we can begin to make decisions to move forward with Jesus, rather than sit with Satan in our sin.

#comfortable #thenarrowpath #obedience #romans #jesus #sin #healing