Ultimate sins

In the Christian life we all have different sins that we struggle with. Something which is a constant temptation to one person troubles another Christian very little. There are, however, two sins which affect us all – pride and unbelief. These we will need to do daily battle with until the day we die. They are fundamental sins which underlie other sins that are merely the external manifestations of these two great spiritual ills.

When as a young Christian I was despondent about not being able to conquer pride, someone told me that pride was  ‘like a man’s vest – the first thing he puts on in a morning and the last thing he takes off at night.’ It was a helpful analogy. My on-going struggle was normal., and I could expect to do battle with pride to my dying hour.

Pride was behind the first sin, when Eve succumbed to the temptation to be ‘like God’ by taking the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Pride wants control, wants to re-write the rules, wants everything  to be about us. Yet we were created in another’s image, not to be objects of admiration ourselves but to reflect the glory of another. We were made to love and serve, but instead life has become a constant search for the love and admiration of others, always looking to what we can get rather than what we can give.  We struggle against the will of God and try to squirm out of obeying his rules – whether by open disobedience  or more subtle attempts to redefine God’s laws. We substitute the order and authority God designed for his creation with chaos, rebellion and conflict.

If faith is the channel by which our souls are saved, then unbelief brings our souls into the greatest peril. It lies at the bottom of so many of our actions if we care to look closely enough. For example, when I don’t bother to pray I am expressing unbelief in God’s power to change situations. When I grumble about a situation God has placed me in, I am failing to believe that God is truly good in his providence. When I worry unnecessarily, I am expressing unbelief in God’s power and care for me. Do we take unbelief seriously? None of these examples might seem that bad in the scheme of things and yet unbelief is mortal danger to our souls. It is like a cancer or virulent infection. It feeds on itself; one unbelieving thought leads to another. It is insidious. If we stop waging war against it for a moment, it rapidly gains control of our spiritual lives.

The Puritan John Owen said ‘Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you’. That is nowhere more true than in relation to these two great enemies.