Housebroken Sin

Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada. You know, I had a friend in college who enjoyed gossiping with one particular classmate. She wasn’t loose with her tongue around anyone else. But, oh, did that classmate get an earful! My college friend thought she had contained her sin; she’d housebroken it, made it domesticated and respectable. If there’s anything that proves we’re all sinners, it’s that we are always trying to make our transgressions look respectable. Like, “You’re pretty good, all things considered.” But no. Theologian JC Ryle says: “We are too apt to forget that temptation to sin will rarely present itself in its true colors. Never when we are tempted to sin will we hear sin say to us, ‘I am your deadly enemy… I want to ruin your life.’ That’s not how it works.”

So friend, if you are harboring small sins in an attempt to housebreak them, realize they are an offensive to God. And so the good word today is, repent.