It is far too easy for many of us to make room in our lives for sin. We often feel as if we can get away with wrongdoing. After all, we reason, our sin doesn’t really hurt anyone, so why shouldn’t we make allowances for it? When it comes to sin, many of us don’t even struggle. We just give in without a fight. But the Bible tells us that we are to take sin very seriously because God takes it seriously. While we will never attain sinless perfection this side of eternity, we must accept the fact that our sin killed our Savior. We must recognize that it was because of our selfishness He was crucified, because of our rebellion He was nailed to the cross, and because of our lack of character He was tortured. These recognitions in themselves should motivate us and give us an intense desire to defeat sin. Billy Sunday, the famous baseball player turned evangelist and reformer, never spared himself nor those he wanted to reach when it came to his vigorous attacks on sin. From the Gay Nineties through the Great Depression, he thundered against evil. Until his death in 1935, he preached Christ as the only answer to man’s needs. “I’m against sin,” Sunday said. “I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. When I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition.” How passionate are you when it comes to your struggle with sin? Do you tolerate sin in your own life and in the lives of those closest to you, or do you confront it the way Jesus confronted it––with gentleness but with passion?

Holy God, may I never fall asleep at the wheel when it is my turn to fight in the battle against sin.

What is God saying to you right now? Jot down those thoughts and pray them back to Him.

This devotion was taken from: The One Year Book of Devotions for Men on the Go; December 29; by Stephen Arterburn and Bill Farrel