You’ve got to kill it

Lights out.  Head on the pillow.  Relax.  I was just about at that point where you drift off to dream land when, BUZZZZZZZZ right in my ear.  ::thump:: I whacked my head, sat straight up and turned the light on.  (This is highly unpleasant at late hours of the night.)  I knew that sound immediately.  It was a mosquito.  A large one.

There I was lying in bed with the sheets up to my eyes wondering when the little monster would strike.  I couldn’t sleep thinking that he wanted me for his dinner.  Then I saw him on the ceiling.  That attempt to kill him was unsuccessful.  As was the next one.  Finally I killed the mosquito after about 10 minutes of nervously searching my room.  Even though the light was now off and the mosquito was killed I was still wide awake and thinking.

My sin is like that mosquito.  It wants to suck the life out of me.  It’s small but it leaves a mark.  One mosquito doesn’t sound that bad but if you let it stay it will hurt you.  Your sin may seem small but it is deadly.  I Googled “How many people are killed each year from mosquito bites?”  I was shocked with the answer.  Mosquitos are the deadliest animal.  They are so small yet their bite results in literally hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.  The majority of these deaths are caused by the diseases that mosquitos carry.  My sin is a disease and it can spread.  Thankfully God in his mercy has forever crushed the power of sin and death but are we using that as an excuse to abuse grace?

In the middle of writing this I had to set it aside.  In the meantime I ended up going to sleep and lo and behold the same thing happened again last night!  Yeah sin keeps coming back.  But this time when I heard the mosquito and turned on the light I knew what to do.  I knew how to kill it.  I knew how to kill it faster too.  Once we start actively putting to death the sin we see in our lives, by God’s grace, we get stronger.  Recognizing sin is a gift of grace itself!  The fact that we can see sin at all (that I could hear the mosquito…) means that our senses aren’t being blinded.

“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.”    (Romans 6:15-19 ESV)

My hope for us is that we would be aware of the sin that’s poisoning us and put it to death by knowing the victory Christ has already won.  Friends, we get to win this battle!