I have just finished reading a book by John MacAuthor on the Vanishing Conscience. This is a must read for all Christians. The struggle with sin in the life of a Christian is so very hard and confusing. It is hard to understand how we can have the spirit of God in us yet we still do things that we really have no desire to do. I am afraid that part of the reason for our struggle is the lack of openness about our sin. We tend to hide the fact that we struggle with sin, we try to put on our ‘Christian faces’ so that all will think that we have no problem with sin in our lives. You see, Revival will never come to the church until we are open with God and with each other. We need to call sin for what it is and try not to water it down or hide it. If we would all be honest with ourselves, we will find that all of us struggle with sin. We all have certain tendacies and sinful habits. By the way, no sin is greater than another. Just because you don’t struggle with what we would think as ‘big sins’ does not mean you are any less sinful than the next person. Sin is Sin. It is missing the mark, falling short of God and His Word. Sin is more than just doing wrong things, but it is also not doing the things that God has commanded us to do. There are many things we can do to overcome sin in our lives. The first step is to be open about your sin. You must call your sin for what it is and be specific. As a pastor, I want you to know that I too struggle with sin. There is not a day in my life when I do not face temptation. Many of those days I find myself doing the very thing that I have no desire to do. There are several things that I will share with you in the next few blogs concerning how to overcome sin. But first I want to encourage you to spend the next few days being open about your sin. When you do sin, immediatly confess it out loud to God. Let Him know what you did. If the problem persists, go to someone you love and trust and share with them your struggle. The worse thing we can do when it comes to sin is to hide it. When we suppress the sin in our minds and we think we are okay because no one knows about it then we are destroying our conscience. Soon we will find oursleves taking our sin to a new level and we keep sinning, because we think that no one knows. I challenge you to be open about your sin. Don’t hide it. Don’t bottle it all up inside. Confess your sins to God and share your struggle with someone you love. The road to overcoming sin must begin with openness.