“Sin whispers to the wicked, deep within their hearts. They have no fear of God at all. In their blind conceit, they cannot see how wicked they really are.”
Psalm 36:1-2
I have to fight it every day. You see, I don’t have a personal identity crisis. I have a sinful identity crisis. It comes as standard equipment with the human package. Even with Christ in my heart, I still have whispering sin in my head.
As living humans, we are all broken in various ways, absent Christ in our lives and even then sin doesn’t easily surrender.
Psalm 36 does a great job of taking this full circle: The wicked have no fear of God and in their blind conceit, they cannot see how wicked they are. They make no attempt to turn from evil.
The sinful man listens to himself rather than to God. He convinces himself that sin is what he wants and he orients himself to take advantage of every sinful opportunity. He has no desire nor does he make any attempt to turn from evil.
The mind plots. The will sets the desire. The emotion does not despise evil. Life, like this psalm would be hopeless if it ended here, but it doesn’t have to.
God can rescue man from sin and eagerly awaits every opportunity to do so. His position remains steadfast and he is not blown by the winds of cultural change. His love is as vast as the heavens and His faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. All humanity can find shelter in the shadows of His wings.
Our modern culture has made sin so acceptable that it is becoming politically incorrect to speak out against some kinds of sin. We, as Christians, are drawn to examine our own hearts, lest we are swept away by the sinful culture around us.
The miracle of God’s grace is that our view of sin reveals our view of scripture and my view of scripture reveals my view of myself.
We have to live Biblically in a world or system that is intrinsically corrupt, immoral and un (or even anti) Biblical.
Only with God’s grace can we rise above that. Through Christ alone we can be overcomers. Righteousness equals Jesus Christ and nothing else.
