expensive

Being an adult is expensive. I mean, even if you don’t have kids, the amount of bills required on a monthly basis can feel overwhelming. Take owning a car, for example. Sure, you buy the vehicle, but even if you get a Dave Ramsey beater for cash to drive for a few years, the cost of ownership doesn’t stop. There is not only insurance and gas, but don’t forget oil changes and routine maintenance. And just when you get all that taken care of…BAM! New tires. I swear, it never ends. And living in one of the fastest growing suburbs in America right now where there is construction on every corner, I think I am solely responsible for keeping our local tire shop in business.

You know what else is expensive? Sin. I mean sin is fun, no doubt. If anybody ever told you it wasn’t, they are a bunch of lying liars. For a season, sin is a total blast. A rush of excitement and the newness of it all make it so alluring, and sometimes even addicting. It FEELS good. It FEELS real. It FEELS like everything we have been wanting and needing. So we trick ourselves into thinking that our sin doesn’t realty hurt. It’s fine. And it all DOES appear to be fine until one day, the walls come crashing down and we see that we are in WAY over our heads.

I read a quote recently on the ‘gram and I wish could find it to properly credit the author, but it said, “sin takes us farther than we wanted to go and keeps us there longer than we wanted to stay.” Sin is expensive. It ALWAYS costs us more on the back end than we EVER anticipate on the front end. Satan is the master of deception and he highlights the temporary benefits while hiding the true cost. The ripple effects of the choices we make sometimes carry on for generations. Think I’m exaggerating? Slavery. Addiction. Infidelity, just to name a few.

It doesn’t take much thought to understand how any one of these could affect a country or even a single family for generations to come. Slavery in our country has created a great divide that over a hundred years later are we just beginning to try and heal. Addiction can easily be passed down through family lines, never stopping until one brave soul decides to end the cycle and break the curse. The ripples of an affair never just affects the two or three people involved. The consequences touch every single relationship within the sphere of those few people. It wrecks marriages, friendships, businesses, and homes. And sin doesn’t just cost us people, places or things; ultimately it always costs us our freedom.

The real problem with sin isn’t sin. Our sinfulness is just a side effect of the real problem; the greater problem that got us here in the first place is that we have disconnected from the source. Just like in the garden, the Tree of Life (God) was always meant to be the place where we get filled. Connection, instruction, and unconditional love are first and foremost found at the feet of Jesus. When we find ourselves bound up by sin of any kind, the first question we need to ask ourselves is this: “who have we let become our source?”

Who have we been listening to? What have we been connected to? Where have we been looking for love in all the wrong places? These other things that strive to become our source always end up as an idol on the throne of our hearts.

“You shall have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:3

This commandment isn’t just thrown in the list to make God feel good about himself. It is there because the Lord knows anything else that we let run and rule of hearts and minds will always lead to destruction. Always. So they must be removed. Jesus didn’t come to help us manage our sin; He came to change us. He came to unravel everything and everyone in our lives that stands in the way of the plans He has for us. But before we can ever get to the work of what to DO, we must first be fully undone to the point of knowing who we are…how to simply BE.

And Jesus says you are:

Unique.

Loveable.

Forgiven.

Worthy.

Known.

Pursued.

That’s it. Even in the midst of your greatest sin and most shameful consequences, that is who you are. When you find yourself bound and gagged by the cords of your choices, Jesus still died on the cross for your freedom. It is just a case of unplugging from the destruction and plugging in to the real source.

I’m writing this for you, but I’m also writing it for me. And my kids. As a parent, I feel a heavy burden to show them who they are and remind them what to do when they forget. I want my kids to understand that when they get out in the world, sin isn’t going to come looking for them wearing all black and carrying a pitchfork. It is going to look like fun. It is going to look innocent. It is going to look like freedom. But Satan is a liar and sin is expensive.

If you are being honest with yourself, what idols have you let sit on the throne of your heart too long?

What is God unraveling in your life right now?