as henry says...

I recently finished reading Henry Blackaby's book on Holiness, and found it to be very thought-provoking and truthful. His discussion centers around (duh!) holiness, but the meat of the work is that we do not live fully holy lives because we do not really know God and what He's all about... particularly in the dept. of sin.

Henry proposes that if we knew God and His attitude regarding sin, that we wouldn't be content sloppily stumbling through life the way we currently do. We'd be fixated on living as God desires; we'd have a burning desire to leave behind our sin and be holy. As a result, says H, we would be used by God in more substantial ways to relay His holiness to the world.

For a long time, I've been hashing out in my mind what a correct view of the sin-forgiveness cycle should be in a believer's life (particularly, mine). I always come down to the fact that we don't really care about sin, but rather just focus on forgiveness. What I mean is that I don't grieve about my sin; I am not overcome by remorse for sin just because it is sin. I have yet to shave my head and wear sackcloth in response to sin in my life. Of course, those are not the only ways to see sin as what it truly is, but a sigh and a "try better next time" are not produced by a heart which abhors sin as God does. (And certainly, a "well, it's not that bad..." attitude is at war with a biblical perspective of sin.)

Sin is utterly putrid to God, and therefore, it should be to me. I want to be set apart as holy... and I want the church to want that, too!