As I type, my house feels like it has been turned upside down. Furniture is in random places, and many of my belongings are strewn everywhere. I like everything to be neat and tidy, so my anxiety level is rather high right now! Why is my house such a wreck? Water. Water, water everywhere. If you want to discover the damaging effects of water, let it remain trapped under your carpet for four days. Yuck.
Last weekend, one of our outdoor spigots burst because it had frozen over the winter. Water therefore leaked into one of our walls and began spilling onto our master bathroom and bedroom floors. We stopped the water, cleaned up the visible mess, and left for a four-day trip. Let's just say the mess went much deeper than what was visible.
When we returned from our trip, the smell in our bedroom was enough to knock you down. We assumed the corner nearest the leak was the only problem, so the plan was to pull up the carpet in that area and replace the underlying pad. Easy peasy, right? I wish. As I pulled up the carpet in the corner, I quickly realized the affected area was much bigger than expected. I moved furniture and pulled up more carpet only to find more water. My husband was quite surprised when he came for lunch to find half of our bedroom destroyed. (Never underestimate the strength of an obstinate and irritated woman!) He helped me remove the rest of the furniture and rip up the rest of the carpet. The subfloor is now dry and we can begin our unexpected remodeling project.
Sin works a lot like that water under the carpet. It leaks into every part of us, perfectly content to lie stagnant and wreak havoc in our lives. We often think we can deal with underlying sins by treating surface issues. However, once God's grace begins to peel back the carpet, we realize our sins go much deeper and require an intentional and often painful purging. In The Mortification of Sin, John Owen says, "We cannot go forward unless we recognize the plague of our own hearts. It is to be feared that too many do not realize the enemy that they carry about with them in their hearts. This makes them ready to justify themselves, and to be impatient when they are reproved or admonished. They do not begin to realize the danger they are in.”
Many of us want to destroy our sin, but we do not know how to begin. It is important to remember that we cannot defeat sin on our own. Owen says that if we could discipline ourselves enough to defeat sin without the help of the Holy Spirit, then any unregenerate person could free himself from the power of sin and death. We must depend on the Spirit to give us the desire, strength, and grace to attack sin. We will not reach perfection in this life, but we should be working toward that end. "We should continually be accustomed to reverential thoughts of God’s greatness and omnipresence. Then we will always be watchful against any behaviour not suited to His presence” (Owen). Keeping our eyes on the greatness of God puts everything in our lives into proper perspective.
God takes sin seriously, and so should we. Let's be serious in our fight against sin and take Owen's advice: "[D]o not take a day off from this work; always be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
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