Don’t play around with sin.
Kill it. Make that, slaughter it! Have no mercy.
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Romans 8:13
Sin is a serious business, and the way in which we deal with our sin has eternal consequences.
How we handle our sins is literally a matter of life and death.
Jesus expressed the severity, the seriousness of sin during his Sermon on the Mount:
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Matthew 5:29-30
Think about what Jesus said for a moment.
According to the One who made us, “it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell.”
Now, I don’t believe that Jesus was telling us that we really need to mutilate ourselves — if you think about it, we would have a whole of of one-eyed southpaws around us — but rather giving us an idea as to how serious sin really is.
It’s better to be blind than to burn.
It’s better to be handless than hopeless.
It’s with these things in mind that Paul wrote to the saints in Christ at Colossae:
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
Colossians 3:6-8 [emphasis added]
We must kill our sins, that is, the deeds of the flesh, or we will not — indeed, we cannot — live in the presence of God.
We must NOT merely play with our sins or learn to live with them. We must put them to death.
This is serious stuff and putting to death the deeds of our bodies may involve painful things, such as ending ungodly relationships, quitting jobs or completely changing career paths, moving to a new neighborhood or city or state or nation, etc.
The good news is that God will forgive us:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9 (read the whole letter for context!)
But note that killing sins is not something we can do on our own; we can only mortify our sins through faith in Jesus Christ. Choking the life out of our sins is neither easy nor fun, but the rewards are indescribable, not to mention eternal.
We’ll close with the words of the Puritan theologian, John Owen:
Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and thou wilt die a conqueror; yea, thou wilt, through the good providence of God, live to see thy lust dead at thy feet.
Quoted in How the Gospel Brings Us All the Way Home1 [emphasis in original]
- I’m currently reading and highly recommend: How the Gospel Brings Us All the Way Home, by Derek W.H. Thomas. Available at Amazon through our affiliate link (thank you for supporting our work here).