Go Ahead and Squish It

Sin, the flesh, death, and the devil are the enemies of God, and therefore they are the great enemies of the Church and every believing Christian. God has not made peace with those enemies, and therefore, we dare not either. But we do not wage our warfare against these enemies in the dark. In the dark, the shadows of sin and failure and sickness and temptation loom large. In the dark, they are unknown; they are mysterious; they are scary. In the dark, you may scuffle, you may try to step around them, but you can’t see where you are going. You can’t see where the enemies are. You can’t see to avoid the next pitfall.

But Jesus has come to bring light. Jesus has come to expose the works of darkness. Jesus has come to turn the lights on so that we can see our enemies clearly. John says that if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Walking in the light means confessing the sin right in front of us. It means confessing the sin you know about. When we confess the real, actual sin right in front of us, Jesus forgives us and turns the lights on. And when He turns the lights on, you find that the big, bad, dark shadows of sin and death, the flesh, and the devil are not nearly as big and foreboding as you thought. In fact, because Jesus is risen from the dead, they are weak and little and shrinking. Jesus already died for all of your sins, for all of the sins you know about, and all of the sins you don’t know about. Jesus already died for them all. They are already taken care of, already paid for, already dealt with.

Don’t believe the lies of the devil that say your sin is huge, gigantic, complicated, insidious, overwhelming. That was before Christ died, but now He has died and risen and the darkness is fleeing away. The shadows are shrinking. Your sin is smaller and smaller. This is not a moralistic pep talk about being an optimist. This is an exhortation to believe the gospel. If Christ died and is now alive having conquered sin, death, the flesh, and the devil, then your sin is a little ant. Go ahead: confess it and squish it.