Are you dead (part four) to pet sins?

This may be a touchy subject. Let us first define pet sins. A pet sin is something you enjoy, but which is evil in the Lord's eyes. It is usually something we justify ourselves for. The knowledge that we are free in Christ does not help much when it comes to this self justification. Some of us are very aware of this sin, but some don't see anything wrong with what they are doing. We think that God does not mind our pet sins, since we think they are forgiven in Christ and therefore we reckon we are free to sin as well. There are, however, many passages contradicting this self justification of which the following are the most relevant:

1 John 3:5-6: ^“But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.”

Romans 6:1-4: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

 Romans 6:15-17: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”

1 Corinthians 6:12, 13B (Amp): “Everything is permissible (allowable and lawful) for me; but not all things are helpful (good for me to do, expedient and profitable when considered with other things). Everything is lawful for me, but I will not become the slave of anything or be brought under its power. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but [is intended] for the Lord, and the Lord [is intended] for the body [to save, sanctify, and raise it again].” This is written in the context of sexual immorality.

We find a similar passage in 1 Corinthians 10:23-24 (Amp) in the context of the believer’s freedom: “All things are legitimate [permissible—and we are free to do anything we please], but not all things are helpful (expedient, profitable, and wholesome). All things are legitimate, but not all things are constructive [to character] and edifying [to spiritual life]. Let no one then seek his own good and advantage and profit, but [rather] each one of the other [let him seek the welfare of his neighbour].”

Examples of pet sins are:

Serving Mammon, in other words enjoying and making use of the comfort and enjoyment that money and a materialistic lifestyle brings at the cost of service to the Kingdom of God. It is very convenient to live as you like, avoiding the obvious sins, but only tagging Christianity along as an eternal security measure. The problem is that in this process a serious sin is committed, which is disobedience to the Holy Spirit, since obedience may cause us inconvenience regarding our lifestyle of materialistic comfort.

Sports: An excessive awareness of and participation in sports, either as spectators or athletes at the cost of serving the Kingdom is sin. Again we have self justification here. “I take part to the glory of God.” What you need to ask yourself is what is in your heart. How does your focus benefit and promote God's Kingdom in that souls are saved, people are discipled and educated in God's ways. If you only use yours being a Christian to benefit your sport and the image you portray, you sin. If you put the watching of and participation in sports above the development and usage of your gift to serve the Kingdom, you sin and need to die to this sin.

Yielding to the desires of the sinful nature (the flesh):

These could be greed, dishonesty, anger, selfishness, lust, pornography, vanity, hatred, unforgiveness, corruption, manipulation, etc. There are many demands we receive from our flesh or carnal nature that need to be overcome and die, since they stand in the way of our purity and an unhindered relationship with the Lord, (Galatians 5:16-26) Do not be deceived. God may love you as you are, but without holiness no-one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). The word holiness here means sanctification or being made holy. This is a process. See the series on holiness to be found in the archive to the right of the Word bytes blog in August and September 2014.

Satan and his demons attempt to use these weaknesses in the flesh to make us ineffective and delay God's plan with us. The Lord, however, uses them to form our character and to teach us a victorious life as well as self control (Paul’s thorn – 2 Corinthians 12:7-9). The aim is for the above-mentioned things to die so we could be completely sold out to the Kingdom - or as Isaiah put it in his famous chapter about True Fasting: “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.”

Lord, please show me my pet sins and help me die to them.