Tangled Up

I’m not sure what happens between one Christmas and the next, but it always seems that my Christmas lights are tangled up into knots when I unpack them. I’ve never seen a gremlin jump out of the storage boxes, so I have to assume that it is my fault. Most likely, at the end of the previous Christmas season, I was so eager to get everything packed up that I didn’t take the time to pack the lights up in an organized way. So, each year I open the storage boxes to find a tangled mess.

Sin has a way of creating a tangled mess in our lives. Our sins are simply those things that we think, say, or do that are not pleasing to God. A day doesn’t go by that we do not sin. Since the beginning of time, humanity has been creating a mess with our sinfulness. Not only are our individual lives tangled up in our sin, so too is the world itself. We only have to read the daily news headlines to realize how much sin has impacted all of creation. We are all tangled up in knots with our sin. In Romans 3:23, we read, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” 

To not live in such a tangled up mess, we must daily repent of our sinfulness and seek God’s forgiveness. When we daily confess and repent of our sins, we can keep our lives from becoming a tangled mess. When we fail to seek forgiveness, sin over time and unchecked creates quite a knot of sin, shame, and guilt. Before we know it, we are knotted up in our sin, hardened in our hearts, and lifeless in our spirits. This is why the writer of Hebrews would remind us: “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” (Hebrews 12:1) 

The good news is that God offers us his grace so that we can throw off our sinfulness. God’s grace enables us to experience forgiveness for our sin, even when we are knotted up and entangled with it. By simply asking, God can take our most sinful entangled lives and untangled them into something new. We do not have to live our lives entangled up in our sin. God’s grace sets us free, unravels our sin, and allows us to truly shine. So never let us think that our sin-knotted lives are too much for God to unravel.  God’s grace will always be greater than our sin.