“Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:25).
They were everywhere. In the cereal boxes, crawling over the countertops, drowning in the sinks, buried in the sofas, falling from the ceiling . . . It seemed like the more I squished, the more there were, and I had had enough!
Of course I could have called an exterminator – but what kind of a woman can’t stand up to a bunch of little black bugs? So I sent out on own my personal quest to find where the pests were coming from!
Previous experience led me to begin my search in the pantry. Starting with the top shelf, I began clearing out the jars and cans, searching for the item – the one that would literally be “crawling”. But though I found lots of bugs, none of them seemed to be particularly attached to any one thing. I methodically moved down to the second shelf, then the third, still to no avail. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps I was searching in the wrong spot when I hit the shelf that contained the dog food. I poured out a bag of treats on the chair, and sure enough, hundreds of little black bugs came tumbling out with the “Snausages”: The source, at last!
But did I have them all? There was simply no way to know! I closed the pantry door and ruthlessly continued my search in the dry-goods cupboard!
Isn’t sin like those little black bugs? It starts off innocent enough, but before long, it infests your entire life, causing you to cry out, as the Apostle Paul did, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24).
But praise God, Paul’s words don’t stop here! “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:25). Salvation isn’t based on our ability to “clear out” our “bugs”, my friends! Paul tells us: “Therefore, there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:1,2).
Okay. So the “little black bugs” won’t stand in the way of my salvation. So why worry about them at all??
Two reasons:
- Those “bugs” stand in the way of my friendship with God (Isa. 59:2); and
- The “black bugs” of sin minimize how much God can use me (2 Tim 2:21).
Looks like I’d best be rid of them, after all. But how? Do I search every corner of my heart for the source? If so, where should I start? And if I manage to find the pocket of sin, what can I do about it? How do I go about getting rid of it? It’s an impossible task, doomed for failure from the start!
Or is it?
Consider this text: “To God’s elect . . . who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood.” (1 Peter 1:2) The work of Sanctification is the “Work of the Spirit”! We don’t have to find and destroy the sin on our own! We have the power of the Spirit of God to help us!
Lord Jesus, Thank you for taking care of my “bug” problem! Thank you for setting me free from the bondage of sin, and thank you for providing me with all the power of Your Spirit to completely free me from the “black bugs” in my life!
Love in Christ,
Lyn
Lyn Chaffart, Moderator, The Nugget, Scriptural Nuggets ( www.scripturalnuggets.org ), Answers2Prayer Ministries, www.Answers2Prayer.org