wanted: opportunities to sin

Posted on by Lydia Borengasser

Your child was doing just fine until you told him “no.”

He was simply playing with his toys on the kitchen floor, completely oblivious to the danger around him. The thought of touching the oven never entered his mind. And he wouldn’t have touched it.

Except for one problem. You told him “no.”

You said, “Do not touch.” And immediately something changed. Mom says not to touch hot stove? Challenge accepted.

With only a sneak peek to see if you were watching, your innocent 18-month-old son, reached his chubby little paw out to touch it. To do the awful deed. To disobey. To sin.

Sin seized an opportunity. Before the commandment came, all was hunky-dory.

Enter commandment, and it’s like, “Yes, please. I was looking for opportunities to sin.”

This is how sin works. It is nothing, until a choice for right or wrong is offered. Sin sits there waiting, until someone says, “Here’s what you must not do.” Then it jumps at the chance.

In all actuality, your 18-month-old son is no more innocent than Hitler. Calm down. It’s not your fault. He came that way.

You think the human heart isn’t inherently sinful? Think again.

You sin when you want to.

You sin when you don’t want to.

You sin on purpose.

You sin without realizing it.

You sin because your heart knows you have the option. And left to yourself, you’ll always choose sin.

Sin crouches inside you, impatient and greedy, until there is a choice. And then you hear yourself say, “Why, thank you. I was looking for opportunities to sin.”

If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7:7-11, 24-25

[image credit: journeyindiana.com, journeyoftheword.com]

10 thoughts on “wanted: opportunities to sin”

  1. Interestingly put, thank you for the post! We are sinners by nature and by choice! We have what I call total hereditary depravity.

    Here is something you may find interesting about Romans 7:9. I’ve normally viewed that a verse which tells about what I call the “age of accountability.” The “age of accountability” is the time (not a specific age really) when we are accountable for our sins because we know they are sins.

    We were alive unto God without the law once – born with a sin nature but innocent and “safe under the blood” of Jesus as I also call it. What this means is that those who die before reaching the “age of accountability” go to heaven. However after reaching the “age of accountability” we die unto God and must be born again.

    Now, there’s a number of other verses that talk about this subject and possibly more plainly, but I don’t want to go too long off subject hehe. I just thought you’d find that interesting 🙂

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    1. That is interesting. I’ve heard of the “age of accountability” idea. It never crossed my mind when I read this verse. I’m not sure what I think about the “age of accountability” idea. What comes to mind is that God says those who have never heard are still without excuse. It seems to me that the “age of accountability” is a term or concept that people have come up with to reconcile the question of what happens to babies/children because they don’t yet understand. That’s a hard question to answer. But I’m not sure the Bible indicates that a child is going to heaven on the basis of ignorance until he/she has the mental capability to understand the gospel…and then he/she is suddenly bound for hell. I’ll definitely have to give it some more thought. Thanks for bringing that up.

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  3. I remember doing this as a child, but I actually touched the hot iron! I knew not to do that again afterwards! It is amazing how we sin, even when we are not looking to. Thanks for sharing your post with #SocialButterflySunday! Hope to see you link up again this week 🙂

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  4. That is pretty much how my nephew behaved when he was tiny. Once he was warned to stop running through the kitchen because the stove was hot he immediately began to try to touch it or get as close as he could without touching it!

    One very odd thing my husband and I ran across was some friends who actually seemed to think that if they kept their kids away from “bad kids” their own children would somehow “stay” good. That didn’t work out well for them, by the way. After watching the behavior of small children it always amazes me when some adult actually thinks they aren’t sinners. It’s a real head-scratcher.

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  6. That’s such a perfect picture, Lydia, of how we as humans are when told not to do something. It just becomes so much more enticing! We truly need to stay aware of that deception and tension we all feel to go against the Lord. Thanks for this challenge and warning, my friend!

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