Burn Your White Flags (Hebrews)نموونە

Where I park my motorcycle behind my office, there's a large 4WD with license plate that reads "WASN’T ME". 

I never park next to it! I’m too afraid that if he did knock my motorcycle over, he’d never accept responsibility. The license plate is pre-emptive protection! “If something goes wrong, it wasn’t me!” 

Sometimes we can walk through life with an inner defense lawyer perpetually trying to reason for our goodness and shun responsibility for our dysfunction. If something is wrong "it wasn’t me!”

We tend not to talk about ‘sin’ anymore. Even in Christian circles and preaching, we can shy away from the concept of sin. “We don’t want to offend unnecessarily”, we say to ourselves. Our culture tells us people aren’t inherently sinful; they’re victims—victims of society, government, bad parenting, poor education, or some other external force. (This doesn’t discount that genuine victims exist). But when we continue to point the finger, we’ll never take responsibility. 

Complacency often marks our attitude towards the sin in our lives. We ignore it, minimise it, cover it, or worse we cozy up to it. We get as close to 'the line’ as we can without stepping over it. 

But sin has a hardening, callousing effect in our lives. It’s dangerous. It makes our hearts progressively impervious to the conviction of the Spirit. 

The antidote we’re told (3:13) is to exhort, warn, urge, and encourage each other. This is not a ‘gotchya’ culture of pointing out others' failures, but a genuine love for our brothers and sisters. 

How can you encourage those around you not to be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness?