In Genesis 1 & 2 Adam was naked and unashamed. In Genesis 3 Adam sinned and was ashamed. Before Adam sinned, he was naked, transparent, and honest in his relationship with God. After he sinned he sought to cover, hide, and deny the sin in his life.

• Naked – Cover
• Transparent – Hide
• Honest – Deny

Rather than trusting God to take care of him, he sought his own “sin management system.” We, like Adam, will deal with our sin similarly if we choose not to deal with it properly. (1 John 1:9 and James 5:16). Resisting God’s way leads to various forms of “fig leaf living.”

Hiding Behind the Fig Leaves

There are many ways to hide behind fig leaves. Hiding behind fig leaves is a man-centered way to “deal” with sin. It not only does not work, but it makes a mockery of the Gospel. Jesus came to rescue sinners and when we choose to handle sin in other ways, we are saying in essence, “I am right and God is wrong.” Here are some of the more common, unbiblical ways we deal with our sin. How many apply to you?

The Penance Payers - This can be grace plus works or just works alone. A person who acts this way believes that God’s plan is not sufficient for the sin(s) they have committed. They may reason that others are able to receive God’s full forgiveness, based on the death and resurrection of Christ, but their sin is different or worse.

Many times they will ask God for forgiveness, but still carry the shame and guilt of their sin with them.

The Blame-Shifters - This group needs help sinning. There is a victim mindset with these people. They reason that while they may be at fault, it probably would have turned out otherwise if their circumstances had been different. Rather than seeing their circumstances as revealing the iniquity of their hearts, they see their circumstances as victimizing them to varying degrees.

Adam used this approach when he told God that it was the woman that God gave him who caused him to sin.

The Rationalizers – These folks may say something like, “It’s not that bad.” At other times you will hear them saying, “Everybody does this.” These are some of the ways they “spin their sin” to tone it down just enough to soothe their consciences. While they have a sense of morality, their craving for sin is greater, therefore they rationalize.

Eventually this practice will mute their consciences to such a degree that it will become increasingly more difficult for them to discern right from wrong.

The Psychologized – This crowd is growing in number by the day. Biblical categories have been replaced my therapy, addiction, and victim language. The pill has replaced the Bible as a solution to their problems, while personal responsibility for their actions is pretty much an attitude of a Bible-thumping, archaic era.

The psychologist has replaced the pastor in the arena of soul care, while the church has been relegated to something that faintly resembles its historical roots.

Application Questions

1. What is your habitual way of NOT confessing your sin? How do you typically, un-biblically explain your sin?
2. Why do you NOT confess and repent of your sin? Explain your answer.
3. How is the Gospel mocked or marginalized when you don’t follow God’s plan for repentance?
4. What is the problem you have with God that would motivate you to not confess your sin, but choose rather to exercise faith in your own plan rather than His?

This blog post is an application of my sermon notes from Southside Fellowship, preached 06.13.10 by Charlie Boyd. Click HERE to listen to the sermon.

You may be interested in these articles

• A Breviary of a Hard and Soft Conscience
• Re-categorizing my problems
• Why I struggle with secret sin
• The Conscience: Friend or Foe?




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No, it’s not a slow writing day at The Counseling Solutions Group, Inc. I have actually been pondering this question for over a decade and have never written on it. I figured I needed to stop pondering and start writing. I’ll go ahead and give you my conclusion and then give you my reasoning.

I believe Adam ate a fig

Yes, I know. This is an argument from the silence of Scripture. Let me save you the time of writing to me to let me know I have no solid Scriptural proof. I realize this. But before you completely dismiss me, let’s reason a bit together.

Numbers 21:4-9

And the LORD said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. -vss. 8-9 (ESV)

This is the story of the fiery serpents that the LORD sent to bite and kill the complaining Hebrews. (Glad we don’t live in that day.) They realized their sinful ways and cried out to Moses to help them. God’s answer to Moses was to erect a bronze serpent on a pole and for every Hebrew who looked at the bronze serpent, he/she would live.

In essence, God told them to look at the thing that was killing them. The thing that was killing them would save them.

John 3:14-15

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (ESV)

John made a direct and specific correlation between what Moses did in the wilderness and what God was about to do with His one and only Son on Golgotha.

2 Corinthians 5:21

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (ESV)

In this passage we see the heart of the Gospel. The thing that was killing us was sin. God took all of our sin and put it on His perfect Son. God then judged His Son and our sin. The Father was perfectly satisfied with this arrangement and from that point forward we are told that if anyone believes in this arrangement, they will be saved from their sin.

The Hebrews exercised faith in God’s redemptive plan in the wilderness, which was a foreshadowing of the eternal redemptive plan as seen in 2 Corinthians 5:21. John connects these ideas in his text, which is found in John 3:14-15.

WWAD: What Would Adam Do?

Adam sinned. And because of his sin he had to suffer the penalty of his sin, which was communicated to him in Genesis 2:16-17. God said,

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (ESV)

Adam deliberately chose to break God’s commandment and because of his sin he had to suffer the consequence of his actions. What he did right after he broke God’s commandment was to cover the reality of what he did. He did this with fig leaves.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (ESV)

The fig leaves provided a temporary covering for their sin. This is where I drift out of the text and enter into speculation. But I think it is intriguing speculation that is worth pondering. The Gospel is profound to me. The fact that God would take the very thing that was killing us and place it on his Son and then give us the faith to look at our sin on His Son and receive redemption from our sin is stunning.

It would not surprise me when I get to heaven to find out that Adam ate a fig and then covered himself as an early, primitive, echo of our profound Gospel. Don’t you think that makes more sense than an apple? Who made that one up anyway?

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Mailbag: Rick, what do you say to someone who says all sins are equal: my sin of pride is equal to his sin of porn addiction. We have a situation where someone with a life-dominating addiction to porn wants to marry a girl in our church. Some are saying to her that his addiction is no different from other sins. What does the Bible say about this?

The Answer Is: Yes… and No

The answer is truly “yes” and truly “no” and that is not a “political” answer. The real issue is that somebody is missing the point: equality of sin should not be part of the argument. A person who is trying to make the argument at the point of “equality” is either ignorant of the real issues or being intellectually dishonest.

Yes, it’s true that all sin is the same, in that any sin would put Christ on the cross. No one argues that point. No, it’s false because all sin is different from a consequential perspective. This point is also not arguable.

Murdering a Friend v. Stealing a Soda

I wrote three articles last week about the murder of my brother. To say that the brutal murder of my brother is the same as the time when I stole a bottle of soda from a general store at the age of 10, from a consequential perspective, is not true. Yes, they both are sin and either one could have put Christ on the tree, but they are radically different from a consequence perspective, a motive perspective, a character perspective, and a long-term effect perspective.

Very few people know and even less people care about the time I stole a soda from J. L. Austin’s General Store in Wingate, N. C.. But I can assure you that many people know and some people are painfully aware of the five slugs that were put in my brother’s body.

What is the Point?

It really depends on how someone wants to argue the point, as well as their motive for arguing the point. Why are they trying to juxtapose the two, by saying the two are the same. Truly, they can do that and talk at length about how sin is sin and how any sin is sufficient to cause Christ to die on the tree. They can also create an antithesis, by saying the two are different. Both positions are correct.

Regardless of how they want to argue the point, it seems to be missing the real issue. I can tell you from years of counseling that all people struggle with pride related issues, but for the folks who struggle with porn, they have a different kind of problem that is far more complicated.

I don’t think it would be wise to go to a wife of twenty years and tell her that the porn addiction her husband has been involved in most of his life, though she just found out about it, is no different than the sin of pride or stealing three sheets of copy paper from the office printer. I wouldn’t advise making that argument. Intuitively she will know there is a difference between porn and paper. And physically and emotionally she will know there is a difference.

A False Analysis

A person should not compare pride and porn the way you have presented your question above. While all sin is pride, not all sin is porn. Pride is in the heart of a person, while porn is in the behavior of a person. Pride is the “sinful soil” that all other sin grows out of. Porn, on the other hand, is a specific manifestation of pride. When a person talks about pride, he needs to be more specific: how is pride manifesting itself in his life?

• Telling lies grows out of a heart of pride.
• Overeating grows out of a heart of pride.
• Porn addition grows out of a heart of pride.
• Stealing a soda grows out of a heart of pride.
• Adam’s choice to eat the fruit grew out of a heart of pride.

All biblical counselors know that you should not simply ask a person to “repent of pride.” That places the counselee in a frustrating position. The careful counselor will ask his counselee to repent of a particular manifestation of pride. (See the list above as examples of this.) What the counselor wants his counselee to “put off” is a specific sin, not necessarily the “soil” from which all sin grows, i.e. pride.

Though the counselor wants his counselee to fight the pride in his life, he knows that that is a lifetime battle and one of the ways you fight pride is by “putting off” the manifestations of pride as they show themselves.

For the person who wants to marry the girl in the church, the specific pride issue is porn. And I can tell you from a consequential perspective that that particular sin raises a lot of red flags. Porn is the “tip of the iceberg” that signals a host of other sin issues that must be dealt with. Whether he marries the girl at this time is not the real issue at hand and should not be the real point of discussion. The real point is for him to get help.

I would not under any circumstances condone a marriage like this until the addict received some help for his life-dominating porn addiction, as well as the cluster of sin issues that are involved with his twenty-year porn addiction. Here is a short list of the other sins that you will find associated with a person in porn:

1. Porn
2. Selfishness
3. Discontentment
4. Frustration
5. Craving for comfort
6. Craving for pleasure
7. Fear
8. Anger
9. Bitterness
10. Slothfulness
11. Procrastination
12. Self-righteousness

There are several other collateral sins, but I’ll stop here. It is a serious issue. The good news is that the sin of porn has been found out prior to the marriage. The main issue at hand is not whether the sins are the same or different, but will the porn addict humble himself enough to walk out objective repentance that is pleasing to God as well as to others who know, love, and care for him. If he does this, then maybe they can revisit, in the future, the possibility of marriage. If he refuses to humble himself, then you’ll have your answer as to whether he should marry anyone at this time.

(Mailbag Caveat: I am responding at length to your question because I have desired to write on this issue prior to your question. I typically do not answer questions at this length because I receive more questions per week than I can possibly respond to. This is a stewardship matter: I must provide an income for my wife and kids and cannot, therefore, respond to the volume of free advice inquiries that come to me on a weekly basis. I do, however, answer questions at length for those who have decided to help our ministry. They are the members of our Membership Site. Because they have committed to help me provide for my family, I have committed to come alongside them through consulting, counseling, and coaching. You can join our Member Site for $4.95 per month by clicking HERE. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll receive through this small investment in our work.)

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• Are you a sinner because you sin?
• Or do you sin because you are a sinner?

Theologically, you sin because you are a sinner, not the other way around. Some evangelistic methods seek to get a person to admit he is a sinner by acknowledging that he has sinned. The thought goes that if they can get the unregenerate person to admit he has sinned, then he will see his need for a Savior.

In one sense, this is not a bad approach. Most certainly, if the person has sinned then he/she is in need of a Savior. But a more foundational truth presupposes our list of sins: it does not matter whether we admit we have sinned or not, because there is none righteous. (Romans 3:10-12; Isaiah 64:6)

We are all sinners regardless of whether we can recollect our sins or not. Though it is not possible for a human not to sin, owning up to our sin is not necessary in order for us to be convinced of being a sinner.

I am human = I am a sinner

Sin comes with the package, so to speak

Most certainly there is a difference in the kind and consequences of our sins, but there is no difference from one human to the next as far as being a sinner. Adolf Hitler, Ted Bundy, Rick Thomas, Barak Obama and any other person are all guilty before God regardless of the number, the kind, or the consequences of the sins they have committed. (See James 2:10) God does not see big sinners and little sinners, but sees all of us as sinners.

The only difference in the list of folks above is whether any of them have asked the Savior to regenerate them. Some of them have been regenerated and some have not.

The question is not what sins have you committed, but have you been born again, because you are a sinner in need of salvation. When it comes to regeneration, the primary issue is the sinner in need of a Savior rather than the quality or quantity of our sinning.

Application Questions

1. Are you tempted to think of yourself as better than any other Christian? (See 1 Tim. 1:15-16)
2. Are you tempted to be unkind to non-Christians for sinning as though they could do something about it apart from the saving grace of God?
3. Are you tempted to be unkind to non-Christians for sinning as though you are any better than they are apart from the saving & sustaining grace of God?

Other Articles in This Series

1. Problem: Big Sinners vs. Little Sinners – 1.0
2. Churches with Big Sinners & Little Sinners – 2.0
3. Adult Sinners with Big Problems – 3.0
4. Acknowledged Sinners with Inexpressible Gratitude – 4.0
5. Big Sinners, Little Sinners & the Worst Sinners – 5.0

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I was 19-years old, looking over my dad’s casket and not really sad about what I was looking at. My heart was full of anger and bitterness because of nearly two decades of ridicule, hate, beatings and isolation. It was about 10 years after my dad’s death before I could say the word “father” as it related to him. We never called him dad or father. We had a nickname that we used to describe him because that was more comfortable and conceivable when we thought about him.

I do not remember him ever telling me that he loved me. To say my dad’s “made in the image of God”  image was broken would be a gross understatement. He started drinking at the age of twenty-one and never stopped until the day he died at forty-two.

He told me one time that I was no child of his because I said that I might marry a person of color. I was 10-years old at the time and didn’t see the big deal about inter-racial marriage. I’m 50 now and still don’t see the big deal. But my dad, on the other hand, was a racist and my remarks about marriage did not put me in his good favor.

We were a dysfunctional family. My four brothers had a similar relationship with my father and by the time we were teenagers, four out of the five of us were rebelling and in jail. Two went to prison and both were later murdered ten years apart.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, (Eph. 2:4)

When I was 24 someone told me about the Savior. Shortly after that introduction, Christ regenerated me. I share this story with you because many of my readers have experienced their own personal versions of hopelessness and despair. Some are in that place of darkness now. My encouragement and exhortation for you is to know that God is greater than all our sin, whether we were the ones sinning or the ones being sinned against. (More than likely, both are true.)

Please know that there is no trial that has come upon you that God does not provide a means for you to overcome. (2 Cor. 12:9) Truly, God’s grace is sufficient, even for you! If you are struggling in ways that seem to offer no light, go to your pastor or a close friend and ask for their help. Helping others is what God’s people do best. You do not have to walk that dark road alone.

It is not true that your story can trump God’s ability to restore you; no matter how hard that is for you to believe. Not only did many of the people we read about in the Scriptures overcome through Christ, but many in this day have had similar experiences. I am one of those people. It amazes me, even 25-years later, that God would regenerate me and then put me on a path of progressive maturity in Him.

If you are reading this blog post, then your reading could be part of God’s restorative work in your life, in order to bring you into a better place. You can find rest in the Savior. Things may not change today or tomorrow, but they can change to the point where you can look back on this season of despair and see how God has led you all the way.

You Can Read More of My Testimony Here:

1. I Got More Hating to Do
2. My Brother Was Murdered 12-Years Ago
3. A Reason Kid’s Rebel Against Their Parents and God
4. Overcoming Dad’s Broken Image

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Sin is not complicated, no matter how entangled our lives have become. There are never new twists to the enemy’s tactics or our responses to his tactics. Adam’s first venture into sin and his response to his sin is the prototype all of us have followed since that fateful day.

Apart from the grace of God, Adam’s template for sin is how I respond to my sin also.

If you agree that Adam’s pattern for sin, as well as mine, is your pattern also, then you are well on your way to applying God’s solutions to your problems. A person who cannot accept his/her role in sin is proud. James tells us:

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. (See 4:6)

Keeping it Simple for the Glory of God

We really are not complicated people. No matter how unique we may want to think we are or how complex we like to see our problems are, once you scratch below the surface, we’re all the same. There are no differences at the level of the heart. In Adam we all have sinned and his first two sins, in this order, were unbelief and fear.

Unbelief is always followed by fear.

When we sin, we choose to become functional atheists in that moment by walking in unbelief. Once we take the path of unbelief, fear begins to rule our hearts. It is in that moment we have to make the right decision. Adam sinned. He then felt a sense of shame for what he had done. His response to his unbelief and the fearful sense of shame that followed was to cover, run, hide and blame.

I trust you can see yourself in Adam. I see myself in him. Notice how Adam and I are tempted to respond to sin:

• Adam sinned – Rick sins
• Adam sensed shame – Rick senses personal shame
• Adam feared – Rick fears
• Adam covered himself – Rick seeks to keep his sin hidden
• Adam ran to the bushes – Rick avoids the truth by running from the truth
• Adam blamed his wife – Rick justifies his sin in various ways

Sin Requires a Response

Your conscience requires you to respond to your sin. Sin is objective. It is real. It demands a response. It can never be ignored. When you sin, you have three basic options. You can…

1. Repent to God (and others)
2. Blame someone or something
3. Justify/rationalize your sin away

Option #1 is stepping up to the plate and taking ownership for your sin. It is God’s way to be free from sin. You confess (agree with God that what you did was wrong), ask God for forgiveness, become reconciled to God because of Christ’s work on the Cross and then layout a plan for on-going repentance as you resist the temptations of the recurring sin pattern.

Options #2 & 3 will begin a hardening process of your conscience. Your conscience has no choice but to begin a “layering process” so you can live with yourself. If you do not repent of these sinful responses, you’ll eventually come to believe your carefully edited version of your truth and the difference between this truth and the real truth will become an ever-widening chasm.

This hardening effect of sin causes self-deception that soothes your conscience so you can tolerate yourself. It is not real living as much as it is resignation, because of a prideful fear of being found out and a stubborn unwillingness to walk in humility. Fortunately God, in his mercy, pursued Adam and presented a plan for his salvation.

God’s Response to Our Sin

Only God, through the power of his Spirit and his Word, can break through your deceitfulness of sin to show you your deception and bring you into the real light of your sin.

Freeing yourself from sin is not accomplished through denial, blame-shifting, justification or other methods of spinning the truth. To be free from sin is to admit you have sinned. You confess it and accept God’s plan for repentance.

Counseling is far more difficult when you have to convince the counselee they are wrong. Self-deception is a beast. I should know. I have to fight my own self-deception daily. It is not hard for me to find accomplices for my problems.

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• I sin.
• I trust my friends will forgive my sin.
• I also hope my true friends will remember my sin.

There have been many times in my Christian experience where I have been encouraged by my friends who remember my sin. It is those friends who know me, love me, want to be around me and help me when I sin.

Imagine going to the doctor for a recurring problem and every time you see your doctor you have to rehearse again why you were there because he seemed to never remember. A helpful doctor will treat the problem. He will also remember the problem when I return. This shows his care.

Yes I know, you’re supposed to forgive and forget. I get that. But for some people whom I sin against, I want them to not only forgive, but to remember.

My Wife Remembers My Sin

My wife is the one I sin against the most. In some way or other, it seems to be a daily happening. It is immensely important to me that she remembers my sin and is ready and willing to appeal to me when I am sinning in order to help me through my sin.

It would be hard for her to serve me effectively if she had “sin amnesia” regarding me. I need for her to know my tendencies, weaknesses and temptations.

I Remember My Wife’s Sin

I have been living with my wife for a long time now. It is usually easy to tell when she is about to sin or is sinning. Recently we were running errands and she seemed to be a bit irritated (Read: anger) toward the kids. I asked her if she was sinning in her heart. I did not know if she was sinning, so I asked.

If you see someone bleeding, do you ignore or seek to help them?

She said she was sinning. She further said she was tired and thanked me for the observation. She humbled herself and repented of her sin and that was that.

Supposed I was unwilling to serve her in this moment. That would be unkind. And thankfully she does the same for me. I think one of the reasons most couples do not do this is because they have a high view of themselves and a low view of sin. This is called self-righteousness.

We need to get over ourselves and pursue one another with this kind of affection.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy. -Proverbs 27:7

I need friends who are willing to step up to the plate and love me biblically. Thankfully, my wife is my best friend and God has been kind to me to bring a few others into my world who are faithful and loving enough to wound me.

Checkout these related and helpful articles

• How do I get over myself? Rethink the Gospel. Read this: Exposed by the Cross
• If you have never sinned against those you love, then read this.
• Also think about The Blessing of Being the Biggest Sinner in the Room
• Here is a personal testimony of a self-righteous man called Taking Out the Trash

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This post is making an assumption. The assumption is you will never be sinlessly perfected in this life. We will never see the day where sin will not have some hold on our lives. For more on this read my post Budget Some Sin Into Your Life.

If you believe this is true then let me suggest you think about your upcoming and inevitable future sin. I’m not advocating or endorsing an attitude that is not aggressively fighting the temptations to sin. But I am trying to state the obvious:

all have sinned and all continue to sin.

Therefore, it would be wise on our part to think through how we plan for the inevitable. One of my temptations is to hide my sin. Because of my tendencies toward self-righteousness I can be tempted not to be humble and transparent and not to disclose to others who I really am. I, like Adam in the Garden of Eden, am tempted to cover up or run and hide or justify my actions. Give me an inch and I may take a mile.

I want you to like me. And it seems counter-intuitive to tell you about my weaknesses if my desire is for you to accept me. Sin is just that self-deceptive.

I am not a sinner because I sin.

I sin because I am a sinner.

It’s an unalterable truth.

While I exhort you to be humble, honest, transparent and self-disclosing I also want to suggest you take advantage of a means of grace God has provided for us while we are sinning. This means of grace is a suggestive location for you to sin. If I’m going to sin, which I am, then I need to think through the best place to sin.

That place is the local church. What better context is there to sin?

Imagine if you had a physical problem. What better place is there to have physical issues than the hospital? Can you do better? If I’m going to be sick then let me be sick in a place where I can get help. As I type this post I’m looking out my office window at the hospital that is about 500 yards from my home. I must admit it brings some comfort to know it is there and I can get there in minutes.

The local church is our “spiritual hospital.” It is the best place on earth to sin! I have had the experience over the past few years to sin many times in the context of my friends. This has not only been helpful to me, but it blesses my wife. Lucia does not feel as alone with the sins of her husband knowing that God has given us friends to walk with us through my sin.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to sin outside the context of friends in the local church.

Can you?

In This Series

• If I Told You I Didn’t Sin How Would You Feel?
• Budget Some Sin In Your Life
• Closing the Gap On Who I Really Am and Who I Present Myself to Be
• Two Primary Reasons I Do Not Change
• Three Truths for Temptation

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From a Facebook Friend – I am interested in resources concerning “psychiatric” illnesses. I have a friend who has been diagnosed for many years. It has been a cycle of on and off meds followed by institutionalization.

I have done limited reading on this issue and I am convinced it is a sin issue and a pattern of sinful thinking. This is certainly true in my friend’s life. Any resources in that area would be great!

Thanks again.

Hello [Friend] – thanks for joining the group. I’m glad you’re here. My hope is to build a huge network of Christian counselors and/or those interested in discipleship so we can effectively serve one another. Here are a couple of things I’d start with regarding your question. And, btw, it sounds like you are spot on regarding your understanding of what your friend is going through. 

1. Read Ed Welch’s book “Blame it on the Brain.” This is an excellent book that will serve you well. 
2. Read Gary Almy’s book “Addicted to Recovery.” This is another must read. If you have read those books let me know and maybe I can think through a few other things to point you in the right direction. 

Thank you for asking. It is a joy to serve you, my friend,

Rick

• Have you ever been surprised when someone sinned against you? …ever angered?
• Have you ever been surprised when you sinned? …ever went into self-pity?
• Have you ever been surprised when you heard about another’s sin? …ever criticized them?

Sometimes when my wife or my children sin I show my surprise by becoming impatient or angry with them. In those moments I need to rethink what they did. Sinning is native to us. Sin is what we do best. To expect me or my friends not to sin is unrealistic. It’s unbiblical.

The opposite expectation to sin is perfection and there was only one who was able to accomplish that.

Many times we can complicate our lives by responding sinfully to sin. This convolutes things which inevitably adds to the original problem. I think it would be better to go ahead and budget some sin into our lives so when we do sin it won’t catch us off guard. And we won’t be tempted to get angry or act in a self-righteous manner.

It’s coming anyway. So you might as well be prepared for its daily entrance into your life. This is not an advocation to sin more, but a recognition that it’s coming whether you want it to or not.

It would serve us and our friends better if we went ahead and accepted this reality of our fallenness. Then we could focus our attention on the problem at hand rather than adding to the problem because of our self-righteous surprise. Sometimes our responses to sin are so distracting that we can hardly get back to the original problem. When I yell at my son for doing something dumb I’ve complicated the situation.

What about you? Have you ever been overly surprised or wrongly disappointed at your sin? If so, you probably have a high view of yourself. Sometimes when we pity ourselves it is because we think so well of ourselves that we become discouraged at what we just sinfully did or said.

A refocus is in order. You need to realign your thinking. Rather than being impressed with self you need to be more impressed with God. Overly fixating on your sin is proud. Here’s a suggestion: for every one look you take at your sin take 10 looks toward the Cross. Train yourself to be Cross-centered rather than self-centered.

C. J. Mahaney’s book The Cross-Centered Life is helpful here.

Also take the surprise factor out of the equation and budget some sin in. And when it comes it won’t throw you, disappoint you or tempt you to get angry at your sinful friends.

Here are some characteristics of a person who does not budget sin into their life:

• You can have bouts of self-pity
• You can be tempted to depression
• You can doubt your salvation
• You can be self-righteous (Read: gossip and/or critical toward the sinner)
• You can be tempted to blame-shift or rationalize
• You can reduce your sin categories, which makes sin acceptable to the conscience
• You can be tempted toward anger

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