The Enemy Within: Chapter 10 (Pt 1)

So far, we've seen what sin is and how it works. Now, in the next couple posts, we'll see what sin does.

In chapter 7 of his gospel, Luke recounts when a women anointed Jesus' feet and dried them with her hair at the house of a Pharisee. The point of this event is given in verse 47 "For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little."

Lundgaard comments that Jesus "meant that her great love, which spilled over with tears and tenderness for him, flowed from a clear sight of how much she had wronged God, and how much he had pardoned her" (113-4).

In other words, if the flame of my love for God is going down it's because my awareness of my sin is also going down. By contrast, her "love for [Jesus] was heated white hot by this fan: a sense of how much God had freely forgiven her in Christ" (114).

Therefore, in its battle against God's Spirit in us, the flesh "dumps seven buckets of ice water on our first love" (115)...which we'll look at next time.