Five sins we accept that we shouldn’t

There’s one label most people hate more than any other label:

Hypocrite.

You can call someone pretty much anything and while they might not like it, they don’t get as offended as when you call them a hypocrite.

That reason is the reason I’ve held off on writing this post. It’s been bouncing around my head since Christmas, but I couldn’t bring myself to write it.

Who am I to tell people to stop accepting a sin that I’ve been accepting myself?

But I’m a big believer that darkness can’t exist when exposed to light. So I’m going to admit on the front end that there are actions on this list that I’m struggling with myself.

With that said, here are five sins we accept that we shouldn’t:

Comparison

This has taken over in ways I never thought imaginable. It used to be that keeping up with the Joneses only happened with the people you ran in the same circles as. You’d see someone with a new car around town or hear about a friend’s trip when you had lunch with them. Now those people show you the car on Instagram the second they sign the papers for it. Or they post the entire vacation on Facebook.

And we think whatever we have or are doing is less exciting than what they’re doing or buying.

And we want what they have.

Bad.

We compare every aspect of our lives, down to our looks and the clothes our infants wear.

What we don’t realize is that in these moments, we’re sinning. Comparison is just the 2016 version of coveting and the Bible is pretty clear we shouldn’t be doing that.

Porn (even when it’s not called porn)

A generation before me grew up only able to see porn in trashy magazines or sketchy stores on the side of the highway. My generation grew up having to go to websites and try not to get our computers infected with viruses.

Today?

Just open up social media and it’s there.

Sure, it’s not labeled porn in the way we traditionally think of it, but it’s there. Whether it’s the “fitness model” who is a little too eager to show a little too much, or it’s the gifs/Vines leaving nothing to the imagination, it’s still porn.

Many people have bought into the lie that if you’re not watching someone actually have sex, it’s okay.

It’s not.

As someone who has dealt with these issues in the past, I know how hard it is to give up something so easily accessible. It’s worth it though. All porn does is steal from your relationship with your spouse (or future spouse). It fills your head with expectations that’ll never come true.

Find someone you can trust to talk to about it. You’re not the only one dealing with this addiction. I promise.

Stealing

I bet you don’t know someone who has walked into a store and stolen hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. Or maybe you do. But I bet you know someone who has stolen music. Or movies. Or TV shows.

Except we don’t call it stealing.

We call it pirating.

Or streaming.

I remember bragging about how it’d been so many years since I bought music because I would download whatever I wanted. Or how I’d watch a TV show “less than legally” (those are my words) when I didn’t have cable.

It was stealing.

I was stealing music and TV shows.

For me today, this manifests itself in wanting to steal elements of a graphic instead of paying to buy it. No one would ever know I didn’t actually buy the license for it, right?

Doesn’t matter.

We shouldn’t base our choices to sin on how likely we are to get caught. We should base them on the holiness we are called to.

Over eating

Guilty.

A lot.

This is the sin Christians have overlooked for decades. How many fat Christians have you seen screaming about how horrible this group of people are for doing this sin all while being three doughnuts away from a heart attack?

Food is a drug that many of us (myself included) are addicted to. We aren’t willing to sacrifice the addiction for our health or holiness. God didn’t tell us to avoid gluttony because he didn’t want us to enjoy food. In fact, we’re told we can enjoy any type of food in the New Testament. And I’m glad! I couldn’t imagine a world without bacon.

We’re told not to overeat because we only get one body and once it’s gone, our ability to impact the world is gone with it. We need to take care of that body and protect it the best we can. This is the biggest thing on this list I’m guilty of currently.

Addiction is hard to break, but it’s worth it. Find ways to be held accountable and move past it. Don’t do it for the scale or to look a certain way. Do it because we’re most effective when we’re healthy.

Getting drunk

Drinking as a Christian used to be the thing people did but never talked about. There’d be whispers but people didn’t outright admit to it. Thankfully, over the last decade or so, we’ve begun talking about alcohol. We’ve started exploring what the Bible says about Christians drinking it. I’ve never drank (for my own reasons) but I’m 100% okay with Christians having a drink.

I’m 100% not okay with Christians getting drunk.

And most Christians would agree with that.

Except we joke about having a little too much wine.

Or how we had one too many at the football game.

Or some other “it was only one time and on accident” excuse to mask the fact that we drank too much.

Accidents happen. And we’re all going to screw up at times. But messing up once is not the same as accepting a routine action. We can’t continue making up excuses for our sin to justify them in our minds.

Sin is sin.

The beauty of all this is while sin is sin, forgiveness is forgiveness. None of us have gone too far that we can’t be forgiven if we’re just willing to stop accepting these things.

My two things are comparison and over-eating.

What are yours?

Say your prayers and take your vitamins.

Have a nice day.

-Jonathan

PS – I’d love for you to take two seconds to rate this post below. It’s totally anonymous but it helps me improve as a writer and let’s me know what’s connecting with you the reader. Thanks a bunch!