We are coming up on Halloween tomorrow and I can’t help but think of the scariest monster of all…the monster within! Forget goblins, ghosts, ghouls, vampires, and witches, the most frightening enemy we face is the ugliness within ourself. However, I think we get familiar with this monster and it doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Look at what a guy in the Bible did when he got comfortable with his monster.

Jonah 1:4-5 

“Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.  All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god.   And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.  But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.”

Not only had Jonah ran from his purpose, spent his money on the wrong things (a ship to Joppa), but now we find that Jonah has fallen asleep in the middle of a storm that God sent to get his attention. Jonah is completely oblivious to the violent seas that are surrounding him. You would think Jonah would be in turmoil since he was running from God and missing his destiny, but rather he is in a deep sleep below deck while the others are frantically trying to survive. Jonah had gotten so comfortable with his sin that it didn’t seem to bother him. It is like he is in some sort of sin trance that caused him to not even notice the storm…LESSON: Don’t get COMFORTABLE with sin

Sin has a way of desensitizing us from the spiritual realities within us. When sin gets in our life we start to become numb to the spiritual things God is moving in. We get so intoxicated by the poison of sin that it causes us to lose our ability to see things clearly. We fall asleep to the signs and truth that God has given us. Sin is a powerful force that can cause us to do things we never thought we would do. It can cause us to become someone we never wanted to be if we allow it to control us.

Ephesians 4:27

“Do not give the devil a foothold.”

Genesis 4:7

Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, buy you must master it

Sin is a monster that lurks within us beneath the surface. It is a vicious beast that feeds off our selfish desires. The more we feed the beast the larger it grows. I remember watching the movie, “The Blob” when I was young and being terrified. You may remember how this monster grew and grew as it fed off of the people it got a hold of. I think sin is just like the Blob, it is waiting to devour us if we get in its path.

 Romans 7:15-24

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

If we get comfortable with sin and allow it to co-exist in us, it will take over. It knows no boundaries, it knows no letting up, it knows no compromise, it knows no fairness. Sin only consumes and destroys all within its path. We cannot allow sin to become part of our life. We can’t get comfortable with our sin and think it is ok.

There is a war raging within us. We must take force and kill the sin nature within us. The only way the sin nature, the blob, within us will die is to starve it. The more we starve it the more we weaken its power. We cannot feed it our lust, anger, bitterness, fears, addictions, pride, and greed. It feeds off of those things and becomes an uncontrollable monster that gets bigger and bigger. But if we feed the Spirit of God within us the monster of sin begins to starve and die. We have to make a choice of who are we going to feed? The Spirit? or the monster? Choose the Spirit and you will live a heroic life!

Romans 8:1-17

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.