I remember, with fondness, the hot summers I spent at my Mammaw’s house. She and Pappaw lived in an inherited, old antebellum-styled home (pictured above) in rural Virginia. While we helped a lot in their big vegetable gardens, there was also much fun to be found exploring the pastures, old barns, and rundown buildings. One such building was a rundown, small house that a doctor lived in who cared for the family in the late 1800s and early 1900s before my grandparents lived there in the early 1970s until mid-2000s. Now my aunt lives there. We kids spent hours fishing, jumping from the loft of the barn into freshly cut hay that had been hauled in from a field that what wasn’t bailed. Mammaw would give us baskets to pick Blackberries and collect eggs the hens had laid everywhere. They wouldn’t lay them very often in their brooding boxes, but under the outbuildings and under the tractors. It was great fun to find all those “hen-ly” hiding places.
However, one memory I recall, quite distinctly, is the one of the wooden floors in that old, beautiful house that Mammaw spent a great deal of time on waxing. I remember how they were easy to slide in our sock feet and “skate.” That house had long hallways leading from the front door to the back door. They were intentionally built that way to allow a breeze to travel through the house, which had no air conditioning. I don’t remember really ever being hot because of the draft, and the strategically placed box fans. But I digress!
We’d spend the evening, after supper, sliding up and then down that long highway. Invariably, we’d get a splinter in our foot. I can remember crying to Mammaw, who always had a needle, and a match to “sterilize” that needle, so she could perform “surgery” to remove the splinter. Did it deter me from having that fun the next night? Never! We’d be at it again and it would never fail that one of us kids would get a splinter. The pain of the splinter, and its eventual removal, together with a strong tongue lashing from Mammaw never deterred the fun of sliding on those waxed floors. Until one night that splinter hurt more than you can imagine because I made the mistake of holding my Etch-a-Sketch®, whilst I slid, causing my beloved toy to fly out of my hands onto that hard floor, and it broke! Oh, how I cried! Mammaw made my tears even more plenteous, as she had warned me several times not to slide with it in my little hands. The “I told you so” hurt worse than removing any splinter that lodged in my foot.
Isn’t sin a lot like that? We sin again and again never heeding the consequence of repeated sin. We believe that grace will cover us like the sock feet on that waxed floor, until we get a splinter. But, even with many splinter removals, we do not learn the lesson that would keep pain and chastisement away. That is until a we are faced with a bigger consequence of said sin…much like breaking a toy we cherish.
The apostle Paul warned us of such in Romans 6:
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” Romans 6:1-2
Why do we not heed Paul’s warning and continue in sin? Is the pay-off really that great to us that we take the sacrifice of Jesus so lightly, as it were nothing?
“John in his first letter takes it further:
“Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.” 1 John 3:4-6
This doesn’t mean that we won’t sin, it means that sin should not be our practice or habit. When we do sin, as Believers, we are to confess it and repent of it immediately. He will forgive us.
But, what about grace, you may ask? His grace is ever abundant, and His mercies are always new. Yet, grace wasn’t intended for us to continue in the same sin day-after-day, rather to cover us when we do sin from time-to-time. The better question to ask yourself is this: “Do I want to abide in Christ or abide outside of Him with my continued sin?”
I cannot answer that question for you. You must examine your own life, compare it to God’s Words, and decide if you are abiding in Christ or cheapening His grace and sacrifice made for you on the cross. You do not have the liberty to continue in sin. That was never afforded you with grace.
In the immaturity of childhood, I did not heed my Mammaw’s warning. Had I listened to her, my toy would not have been broken. As an adult, and follower of Christ, I need to listen to God’s Word and heed it. Toys can be replaced but, I do not want to break and fracture my relationship with Christ. He died so that I might live.
If you are caught in habitual sin, I implore you to go to Him now and ask His forgiveness and turn from that sin once and for all. Whatever it is He will forgive you. But do not presume He will strive with you, if you continue sinning. He did not die to save you for you to continue sinning.
As I am called to live a holy life, so are you. My prayer is that my heart is always contrite, as I know that is an acceptable gift to give to, He who bore my sins.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Psalms 51:17
Abide in Him, beloved.
Soli Deo Gloria
Azalea Trees and Tea Rooms 