Sin is a process, not an event; if you are attentive you will see it coming and escape. One big lie Satan keeps telling us is that sin is inevitable. First he makes us think that we are not capable of knowing every sin; that we may sin without knowing. But this is absurd because sin is a choice, a consequential choice for which the guilty must be punished.
If we claim to not know an action is sinful, our sin is primarily the ignorance. If we ignore the knowledge of sin and pretend to have sinned ignorantly, we deceive ourselves. The knowledge of good and evil is the moral compass of every human being. Ignorance of the law, when you could have known, is no excuse.
Sin is a process not a sudden helpless event. God warned Cain about his fallen countenance when his brother was preferred before him and sin was at the door. He ignored the warning and sinned.
Joseph had Potiphar’s wife make unholy advances to him several times, he saw the evil and fled at the last minute.
“Prov.22:3“ the prudent man foresee the the evil and hides himself, but the simple “pass on and are punished”.
Long before we sin, grace forewarns us. But those of us who choose not to be prudent do not foresee; we ignore the warnings of love and pass on in simplicity and lust for temporal pleasure.
Ananias and his wife did not lie suddenly, they did it deliberately because they had the chance not to lie. “All liars shall have their part in the lake of fire” big liars, small liars, white liars, black liars, deliberate liars and “unintentional” liars. When I lie, my problem is that I do not foresee the evil of my lies. My list for reputation, fear of embarrassment and greed for material fame shut my foresight. We pretend to be helpless at sin. But perhaps the truth is that we are snobbish towards God’s preventive grace. No wonder many times when He forgives us we go back into the same sin. We need to be more attentive and humble.
James 1: 14-15 “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
Before we sin, we are drawn away from the Lord because of our lust. When our desires begin to draw us away from the Lord, we have began the process of sin. The Lord often, perhaps always, alerts us when we are drawing away from the Vine.
We need to be attentive and prove the honesty of our plenty religious activities by responding to his call to draw nearer rather than drawing away. When we are losing the spirit of prayer and the eagerness of studying the Word and the joy of sharing the goodness in our sphere of influence, then we are drawing away.
When the enemy sees as straying he quickly brings an enticement. An enticement entices! It takes away your attention from the straying and attracts you to the enticement. Don’t get there. That part of the process is slippery ground. Don’t get to the part of the road that will have the water splashed on you by a passing car on a rainy day. The draw away -enticement couple is a mighty duo. Don’t allow it to trap you. The love for convenience ( not Confort), the craze for recognition and reputation, the confidence in money, the attention to vain beauty…many more. These dare us away and entice. Run back into the Vine!
If you don’t run back to the Lord, your enticed lust will conceive sin in your heart. Oyster hard to pull back an enticed heart. But grace gives strength if we are willing and obedient. You may be enticed. To be enticed is not sin but info’s almost sin. Sin is the conception: your heart yields to the temptation. It is when you make the choice to lie, steal, rage, hate, not forgive etc ( even when it has not manifested physically).
We need a lot of patience in this life. We need a lot of “take heed to thyself”. But we don’t need more than one Saviour. He calls daily to stay in the Vine.
By Emmanuel K. Mensah