"Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made" (Genesis 3:1 ESV). He has been at it since the beginning of time. He knows the loopholes and the tricks to make sin attractive and seem right. He even makes us desire the very evil of sin...what are we to do?
God tells us to be holy as He is holy. We can only do this with the blood of Christ. When Christ's blood makes us holy by taking part in his death, burial, and resurrection, then we have to continue to walk in the light so His blood continues to wash over our sins. Sin has some weird characteristics though. Even though I know it is wrong to carry out certain temptations that would lead to sin, I find myself desiring that sin. I know it's wrong, but I crave it all the more. It is comforting that Paul dealt with this struggle as well which he records in Romans 7. How can Christians go about hating something they want to do?
It seems like an oxymoron to hate something you want. Generally when you hate something, you don't want anything to do with it. Likewise, when you want something usually you actually like it. Sin is not this way though. Satan works today the same way the serpent did in the garden. He is "crafty." He makes the oxymoron a reality. Sin, which Christians hate, is the very thing we desire to do every day. I think the only way to come to hate sin though is to remove it from our life. Jesus prescribed this along with Paul and others. We must remove ourselves from the temptation or remove the temptation from ourselves. Some temptations we cannot help being around as we live in the world around us, but you control the television in your living room. You control the radio you listen to, the magazines you read, the people you spend time with, the websites you visit, and your career path. Let us cut-out the temptation we can actually control exposure to and I believe hate for those sins will dramatically increase along with love for righteousness.
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