When I thought God was hard, I found it easy to sin; but when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion, I smote upon my breast to think that I could ever have rebelled against One who loved me so… —Charles Spurgeon
Everyone wearing white pants wants to jump in a mud pit. After all, this is why we bought the white pants—to trash them.
Absurd, right? (And a total waste of pants.)
So why do believers jump back into a cesspool of sin? And why do they—as they sit there in their muddy white pants—always give the same excuse, I did it because I can. I’m free, remember? I can do this because grace covers it.
It’s okay to look down in their pit and say, “If that’s what you think, you’re totally missing grace.”
Am I free to jump back into the cesspool of sin? Yes. Just as I’m free to put my hand on a hot stove or free to run my car into a tree. I’m free to go back to filth. But why would I want to? Jesus rescued me from the filth. He pulled me out of the pit. He cleaned me off, gave me a new life, came to live inside me, and set me free to live. I see nothing in the cesspool that is worth revisiting. Everything worth living for looks back at me from the eyes of Jesus.
What then? Shall we sin because we are… under grace? By no means! … Thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. (Romans 6:15, 17-18)
That word allegiance means I have taken the power I had—the freedom to choose sin—and I have chosen Jesus. I’m fully committed with no desire to turn back. I used to be a slave to sin, but everything has changed.
I’m not going back.
I will follow.
The cesspool will never again be my home, but there are still a lot of people who live there. People who need to hear the invitation to dance with their Savior.
I’m headed toward the pools of cess with You. Strengthen me, as there are old patterns there that once defined my life. Perhaps I don’t trust myself, but I do trust You and the transformation You’ve done in me. I have a story to tell those in cess—an invitation to extend—to those who live in those patterns of sin. Lead me. Amen.