This summer, ants have been my nemesis.
We’ve been in an uphill battle with these nuisances in our living room. They’d come and go as they pleased- snacking on whatever crumbs inevitably fell from my boys’ clothes after meals or the lost pieces of snack that my dog missed on her routine rounds. No matter how much I spot cleaned and vacuumed under the coffee table, they just kept showing up again, and bringing their friends!
Our living room floor is covered by dark multicolored carpet so little ants can easily come in and remain unnoticed until you kneel down on the ground and really inspect the floor. We tried to strategically place traps around, but they weren’t very effective because we had to put them where the boys wouldn’t get ahold of them. Which apparently are places ants aren’t interested in either.
One night, I decided to hop back on the workout train and laid on the ground to prepare for a super fit woman on YouTube to tell me what to do for the next 15 minutes. I turned my head and saw a little ant crawling towards my hand. I sighed in frustrated defeat and swatted it away.
About a minute later, all of a sudden I felt this crawling sensation on my shoulders…and my back…and my scalp…
In my horror I realized I was COVERED IN ANTS!
I had unknowingly laid in a big gathering of my summertime enemy and now they were crawling all over me!
I sprang up and started shaking the living daylights out of my hair (which I ended up counting as my workout for the night). I quickly grabbed the vacuum to suck up all these unwelcomed intruders.
THIS was the last straw.
I did what any person in a desperate battle with nature does and googled ‘how to get rid of ants in my living room’. One site suggested spraying the carpet with equal parts vinegar and water.
So my highly supportive husband began rearranging all of our living room furniture into the kitchen and we sprayed the entire carpet from corner to corner until our house reeked of rotten eggs.
Well, now it’s a week later and there’s no sign of these tiny nightmares!
We’ve been very diligent about making sure they have no reasons to come back. No more snacks in the living room and if the boys are covered in crumbs after meals, they strip down in the kitchen! Which they think is hilarious and it’s started to fall into their routine. We’ll just have to remember to break them of it before they start being guests at friends’ houses and people think those Parkers teach strange dinner manners.
As I scrubbed my hands trying to wash the vinegar smell off my skin, it hit me this is how God’s Word teaches us to take care of the sin temptations that invade our own lives.
James 1 says,
“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James 1:14-15 (ESV)
Did you notice where this verse traces sin back to? Temptation. If we don’t take an active defensive role against temptations that crawl into our hearts and minds, it will give birth to sin. We can’t be satisfied with letting temptations go unchecked until they’re crawling all over us.
In Galatians 5 we’re told,
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1 (ESV)
Christ came and had ultimate victory over sin. He died and rose for our freedom so we no longer have to live enslaved to sin. His sacrifice was enough for all of us.
It is possible, though, for us to still live enslaved by our sin.
This verse calls on us to take an active role against picking up a yoke of slavery and living right back in the destructive sin Christ has already set us free from. We don’t need to cower as victims to temptations overwhelmingly building and leading us on a one-way road to sin. Christ has given us the unmatched freedom to stand firm in Him.
Sometimes, in our well-meaning effort to stop sinning, we try to set traps for ourselves. We take it upon ourselves to find ways we think will help us to not fall into temptation next time. But when temptation becomes too enticing, we learn to get around our own traps.
Maybe we have a close, trusting relationship who wants to support us and help hold us accountable but we’re not being completely honest with them all the time.
Or we keep telling ourselves we’ll be strong enough to say no next time- knowing we just aren’t on our own.
Looking to others for support and strength can play an important role in our victory over sin, but if we’re only leaning on our own power or the help from others to stand firm when temptation comes, we’re missing the very thing Christ has given us- HIS power.
He is the One who sets us free.
We need to be honest with ourselves and stop setting traps that aren’t working as our first line of defense. And instead call out to Christ in surrender, asking Him to move in and clean every part of us. From corner to corner.
Later in Galatians 5 it says,
“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Galatians 5:24 (ESV)
We all know ourselves. We know the temptations that always catch our eye and weaken our knees, easily leading us down the road to sin. Temptations aren’t going away. Instead of waiting until we’re covered by suffocating temptation and trying to shake it all off at once, we are to be on the defense against them as they come.
Is this your reaction towards those temptations that come your way? Are you playing an active role crucifying them? Or are you tolerating them, letting them crawl in unchecked a little bit at a time until before you know it you find yourself fastening on a yoke of slavery to a sin Christ has already conquered.
Honestly, I’ve struggled writing part of this post.
This verse says Christ has set us free from sin, but what about the sin patterns that hold such a tight grip on people? What about the sin that’s become a habit? What about the sin that seems to be so weighted on top of us we can’t break free from it?
In my mind, I separated Christ forgiving our sin and freeing us from our sin.
It’s one thing to forgive me where I don’t deserve His forgiveness. It’s a whole other level of love to free me.
I needed God to open my eyes to the truth in Galatians 5:1. I think it can be our natural tendency to believe we can’t get off that easy. We still need to pay some kind of price and face the punishment for our sins. But Christ paid that price in it’s entirety. He took that punishment in full. For me to think otherwise is diminishing His complete sacrifice for me.
It’s seeing His power over sin as less than He says it is.
Christ wouldn’t have claimed to have set us free from sin if it were possible for us to be too deep in our own messes. If we could reach too many strikes in trying to crucify the temptations and failing, then that would mean His defeat of sin wasn’t enough. But, His power is stronger than any hold sin has on a person. He did what we couldn’t: He faced temptation and remained perfectly sinless. Then, He gave His life to forgive and free us from the sin that grips us so tightly.
Temptations will still come around. Some days stronger than others. But our ability to not be enslaved by them- that’s freedom through Christ. We not only can crucify temptations that entangle us, but are told to crucify them with His power.
He breaks the grasp of slavery on us and replaces it with victorious freedom.
Are you tolerating being shackled to a particular sin in your life because you’ve accepted this is just how things have to be? If so, read Galatians 5:1 and take it to heart. Memorize it and remind yourself daily that in Christ you are free, and you can stand firm against temptations because He is stronger than anything else that will ever entice your heart.
If freedom from sin is serious enough for Christ to give His life for us to have, it’s time we get serious about the sin we tolerate in our lives.
It’s time we live in the freedom Christ died to hand us.
So my prayer this week is that we would stand firm. That we would be willing to let Christ clear out whatever is in our lives that’s keeping us in our cycle of temptation and failure. And we would experience the true freedom He paid the ultimate price to give us freely.
From one of His children to another,
Christi