Still Bothered By It

"Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness."
1 John 3:4 (ESV)

Why does it bother you when you still sin?

If you weren't really His, it wouldn't. That's the strange comfort buried inside the question every honest believer eventually asks. You repent, you believe, you trust Christ as Lord, and then one day you sin again, and you find yourself asking, "If I'm truly saved, why do I still do this?"

John has been laying out proof after proof that you belong to God, and one of those proofs shows up in how you see sin. You stop treating sin like a friend you enjoy and start treating it like an enemy you fight. Augustine wrestled with this same tension sixteen hundred years ago. He said you cannot know yourself except through temptation, and you cannot be crowned victorious until you've actually been in the battle.

That battle is real, but it isn't permanent. Salvation has three tenses. You were saved from sin's penalty. You will be saved from sin's presence. Right now, today, you are being saved from sin's power.

So when guilt shows up after a failure this week, in your car, at your desk, after an argument, don't see it as proof you're defeated. Read it as proof the war is still being fought, and with Go on your side, you win. "Lord, this sin still bothers me because I'm Yours. Thanks that You’ve already won, and I trust you to help me overcome now."

The fact that your sin bothers you isn't bad news. It's the proof you are looking for.

Prayer: Father, thank You that this battle still bothers me. It means I belong to You. Forgive me where I've sinned today, and remind me that the war isn't over, but the victory already is. In Jesus' Name, Amen.