A friend of mine this week asked some others at a prayer group, "Do you amaze yourself sometimes at your own sinfulness?" Just her very question was an encouragement. To know that others feel that way about themselves gave me a sigh of relief. I don't mean relief that I should be content in sin but sometimes, knowing your own mind and it's wretched thoughts can cause you to despair, thinking, "How in the world could Christ be living in me and think such thoughts!" Yes, I'm amazed and then it makes me more amazed and in love with the Savior who loved me in my sin and said, "Come!"
In Ezekiel 9:4, 9, and 10, we see God's mercy on those who find sin loathsome and His wrath on those who think He doesn't see. "...put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst." "Then He said to me, 'The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is very, very great, and the land is filled with blood and the city is full of perversion; for they say, 'The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see!" But as for Me, My eye will have no pity nor will I spare, but I will bring their conduct upon their heads."
We are blessed with God's Spirit to convict us of sin and grow us into the image of Jesus-sanctification-until our last day. Spurgeon says, "Genuine, spiritual mourning for sin is the work of the Spirit of God. Repentance is too choice a flower to grow in nature's garden. Pearls grow naturally in oysters, but penitence never shows itself in sinners except divine grace works it in them. If thou has one particle of real hatred for sin, God must have given it thee, for human nature's thorns never produced a single fig. 'That which is born of flesh is flesh.'"
Be amazed at the sin still in you but don't despair. Get on your knees and repent for the Spirit has blessed you with that awareness! Loath the sin in the world and pray for others to see and "repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" (Matthew 3:2)
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