Sin Huggers

As some of you might know Jerry Bridges recently came out with a book called Respectable Sins. If you are faint of heart and love yourself dearly then I suggest you don't read this book or this post for that matter. I haven't finished the book yet, as I had to stop half way through because of deep conviction. This book gets brutally honest about sins that we as Christians have labeled as respectable in our lives, well, because we are Christians and we can do that... yeh right?! WARNING: This book may cause severe damage to your self righteousness and Christian appearance! Read cautiously and at your own risk!

I was reminded of this book, and convicted that I needed to pick it back up again today. It is so easy to get blinded and desensitized to the sins in our lives, that we don't even recognize them as sins anymore. I think if we took a gut level reality check we could honestly call ourselves "sin huggers"! There are those who love nature and protect it at all cost, called "tree huggers" and there are some...well I don't know... but I think I, not just others, but I could be labeled as a sin hugger.
The thought of that is just repulsive!
I was thinking through this today, mulling over and digging, trying to unearth the sins that I commit that I have become so numb to. They are so buried that I am not even convicted anymore that they are wrong. That is where it begins... I sin, let's just say something happens and I shoot my mouth off and let words fly and cuss and carry on... which honestly, I do sometimes. So really I'm confessing here, and this is just one of many! (You can fill in your sin where I have mine named) If I feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit that what I have said/done is wrong and don't do anything about it, then I just brush that sin off like I'm saying, "It really isn't that bad to cuss, I just accidently let it slip... just one unclean word coming from my lips won't hurt anything." Hummm, when I give those excuses to other humans and to myself my sin doesn't sound so bad. I mean it is just a few bad words. But when I take those excuses, those brush offs and that sin and stand before a Holy and Just God... my excuses don't hold up.
I remembered today a mental picture that I was taught when I was younger. It really is kinda gross but very true. Our sins to us don't look so bad sometimes for the simple reason that we are used to them; but our sins held before God Almighty are like dung, yes, feces, or poopoo , booboo, whatever you would like to call it... anything we do that breaks His perfect laws are sins. Anything that we think, do, or say that displeases Him; all are considered sins. He can have nothing to do with sin. So when we sin, our sins are so detestable to God, that the only picture that does justice is that we have feces in our hearts and we are bringing it before God.
Now when we ignore the conviction of the Spirit, and become desensitized to our sins (to the feces in our hearts)... this is when we become sin huggers. When we become sin huggers, not only do we hold on to the feces of our sins, but we begin to store it in a pile and we keep adding to it, why? because honestly we love our sins, we love being in them, wallowing in them sometimes. (Yeh I know, gross!) We don't take it to God and let Him cleanse us, because we have become unaware of how detestable our sins are before God, so we see no need to do so. Therefore we stock pile our (feces) sins, we sculpt our fecal sin pile to make it look not so bad on the outside, we try to cover over the hideous smell (we can't smell it anymore because we are numb to it from wallowing in them so much, but others can), and then sometimes we even get to where we defend our fecal sins. We hug our pile of feces and we try to explain to the Lord, "it was just one cuss word, but this is what happened to make me cuss, it didn't change my heart, or how much I love you, I mean I am a sinner after all, it just slipped." That is when the line has been crossed and I have visibly, to the naked eye become a "sin hugger".
Oh yes, if you are like me then you can be a closet sin hugger! I was one for 24 years, and obviously still struggle with it to this day. And yeh, I'm preaching...to myself! There are so many sins that I commit that I don't even realize anymore, because I have excused them, defended them, and tucked them away deep in my heart for safe keeping. How do we get to this point? Ya know, I don't think it's a question of gettin there. I think we are all already there, and how do we get out of sin huggin! That is the question. We are all born sin huggers, it's not something that grows ON us like an interest, it's something that grows IN us like genetic weeds, there's nothing we can do about it; but I sure know the name of my Jesus who can do something about it.
He has cleansed me whiter than snow, He has washed me with His precious blood that He spilt on the cross just for me. Why on earth would I hold on to a big pile of stinkin poo sins, when He offers life, and life abundantly!? Why hug and hold on to sins that lead to death, when He offers eternal life, free grace, He offers Himself!
The sin huggin dung pile really doesn't seem so appealing anymore when I catch that glimpse of how awesome my Savior is! Praise His name that He will continue to give me that awe love-struckness for Him that will keep me from being a sin hugger!