Find It & Kill It Before It Kills You

Jim Collins shares an experience he had with his wife in his book "How the Mighty Fall." They were on a jog in Colorado on a steep trail. He couldn't keep up with his wife. She was a picture of health. A few months later they discovered she had breast cancer. Although she appeared to be a picture of health when she was running the hill, she was actually carrying the carcinoma that would lead her to two mastectomies. She looked healthy, but she was actually sick with a disease that, if not discovered and dealt with, would have killed her.

Collins uses this story to explain what can and does happen to organizations. They look can healthy and can seem to be functioning well, but actually have something within them that could cause them to stumble and fall.

He writes, "I've come to see institutional decline like a staged disease; harder to detect but easier to cure in the early stages, easier to detect but harder to cure in the later stages. An institution can look strong on the outside but already be sick on the inside, dangerously on the cusp of a precipitous fall."

The entire book is about the stages of decline an organization goes through before it becomes unhealthy to the point of irrelevance or death. I am reading this book because I do not want the family or the church I lead to fail. I do not want to be oblivious or ignore the signs that could protect us from something that could destroy us. I love my family and I love my church and I am responsible to protect and provide for them as I lead them. It is my prayer that this book will help me.

As I was thinking about familial and organizational protection, I started thinking about my life and the individual lives of my family and the people of the congregation I serve. Each one of us has something inside of us that is at work to destroy us spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. And once that is done that destructive force will leave us no longer desiring a physical existence. This sickness is sin. It is in us and around us. It desires along with Satan to have us and destroy us.

We must be vigilant in seeking out the sin in us and be ruthless in destroying it. The puritan pastor John Owen said, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” This is easier said than done, but it must be done. Sin in the early stages of our life is harder to detect, but easier to kill. Sin in the later stages is easier to detect, but harder to kill. We must constantly be on the look out for sin and kill it in the early stages by confessing it and repenting of it to Jesus.

What can we do to identify sin in its early stages? Just as a woman needs to get a regular mammogram, so we must regularly look into our lives for the sin that so easily entangles and hinders us from becoming healthy human beings.

Here are some basic things to do:

1. Spend time in Scripture to seek to understand the nature of God. When we see and worship the greatness and holiness of God, we will more easily be able to identify the sin that is in our own life. When we see God's grace, we can confidently find forgiveness in repentance.
2. Spend time in prayer asking God to reveal your sin to you.
3. Spend time with someone of the same gender that you love and trust and allow them to examine your life. Tell them what you are thinking about. Tell them what you are feeling. Tell them what you do that makes you feel alive, full of hope, important, and happy. If if doesn't honor God, then it's an idol. And as all idols do, it will fail you at some point and cause you to fall.
4. Ask those you love and trust to pray that you would see your sin and find forgiveness in repentance.

Remember that if you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, you are on your own. You must deal with your sin on your own. That means you have no hope. As humans, we are incapable of destroying the sin that destroys us. We have will power to fight off the common stuff, but that will power produces pride, which always leads to a fall. Sin is too ingrained in us. It is a part of us and our world. We all need a savior. We need the One who can take away the punishment and power of sin. We need the One who frees us from the penalty of sin, which is death to God and gives us the power to overcome sin, which is life and love. Only Jesus can do that. Jesus is the One. He is the only hope. It is in Him alone that salvation is found.

If you are a believer, remember that you are not alone. Jesus is with you. He promised (Matthew 28:20 "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”.) He has sent His Spirit to guide us into all truth. (John 16:13 "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.") The Holy Spirit will reveal sin to us and Jesus will deliver us from it. As the redeemed children of God, we have the power of Jesus dwelling in us and God's Spirit directing us. We have been given everything we need to identify what will cause us to fail and remove it before it does. (Romans 8:31-32 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?)

So what's in your life? What's in your marriage? What's in your family? What's in your circle of friends? What's in your church? What is in all of those that is working like a disease to destroy what is good and of God?