Rid of It All!

May 12

How does the Lord expect us to deal with the negative character traits that we have indulged within ourselves? We all have them. They are the “little foxes that spoil the vines” (Song of Solomon 2:15), those aspects of our personhood that do not honor the Christ, whose we profess to be.

When we came to the point of salvation, we emptied ourselves of the worst of our lifestyle choices to that point. We allowed the Holy Spirit to shine the candle of God deep within our hearts and we gladly rid our lives of the negative and destructive things we’d indulged until we recognized the evil of them.

But when it came to the ‘little things,’ the proclivity to gossip, the tendency to twist the truth to our advantage, the inclination to project ourselves as pious in order to impress those around us, we did not recognize them as what they are—indulgence of sin! I Peter 2:1 identifies these things for what they are—wickedness—and orders us to rid ourselves of them!

Peter, who had denied Christ, perhaps recognized the danger of hidden sin better than any of the other apostles, for he had hidden his rejection of Christ until the moment he denied Him! The searing memory of that denial compelled him to say to us, “Rid yourselves of all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander.” To indulge any of it, to any degree, is to diminish the Christ in us.