Jesus Altered Our Appetite for Sin

What Did Jesus Do?

…he who was born of God protects the one who believes…
1 John 5:18

I was a weird kid. I know this comes as no surprise to those who know me now, I guess I’m still pretty weird. But when I was a kid…well, let me just say that I had some peculiar appetites. I wouldn’t eat mashed potatoes without catsup on them. You could not have gotten me to eat a bologna sandwich, and I LOVED bologna, if it didn’t have Miracle Whip on it. I wouldn’t touch tomato sauce with a ten foot pole, my spaghetti had to have butter and parsley on it or no go! And I liked canned asparagus (Ugh!). Nowadays I don’t think I could even swallow a forkful of mashed potatoes if they had catsup on them. I still eat bologna, but don’t really care for Miracle Whip. And, while I love pretty much any kind of pasta with tomato sauce on it, I will still eat spaghetti with melted butter, as long as there’s plenty of minced garlic on it. As for canned asparagus, don’t make me gag! The point is something changed my appetite since I was a boy, and, I believe, for the better. Even more certain than the vagaries of our appetite for food, is the change in our appetite for sin once we receive Jesus.

Oh, there has never been a Christian who hasn’t backslid, stumbled, SINNED, after their conversion. But, the thing is, once we’ve been born again, sin leaves a very different taste in our mouth than before, and we simply can’t go on sinning as we once did (1 John 5:18a). It’s not that sin changes, sin is sin. But Christ changes us. Yes, we may still be too weak in our flesh to resist the appeal of what we once loved and could not get enough of, but we are not left alone to struggle with our flesh. For “he who was born of God” (that is Jesus, the eternally begotten Son), is with us, is within us, and the Holy Spirit of the risen Lord in us makes us stronger and stronger, so that we find the pull of sin lessening, sin’s sweetness grows more and more bitter. (1 John 5:18b) Over time, our appetite for sin diminishes as our desire for righteousness increases. And, though he would dearly love to get his hands on us, the devil can’t get a hold of those who belong to Jesus; it’s as if we have a new non-stick coating which frustrates Satan’s grasping for us (1 John 5:18c).

Even as Jesus and the Holy Spirit vigilantly protect us from the designs of the evil one, so too all who have been born of God are to be vigilant in prayer and encouragement for our brothers and sisters in the Lord (1 John 5:16). As Christ is one with every believer in altering our appetite for sin, and turning us to new ways of living, so all believers are one with each other, and we all have our part to play in cultivating the appetite for God and the things of God, and strengthening one another in faith. Mutual personal accountability of believers before the Lord is an important part of reinforcing our new appetite and resisting our old ones, protecting one another from the devil. That’s what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4