Genesis 4:7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must rule over it.”
Sin wants you! And it will go to any length to catch you. As an image-bearer of your Creator, Satan targets you for destruction. Since all sin—whether big and sassy or small and subtle—separates God from his creation, our enemy uses it to cast a divide. A divide leaving souls ready for takeover. His ultimate goal.
Tim Keller emphasizes in his book, What Is Wrong with the World? that sin “crouches.” It often makes itself small at first so we don’t recognize it. We’re tempted to dismiss seemingly insignificant behaviors or attitudes rather than placing them before the Holy Spirit for his inspection (and possible conviction).
Whether we recognize “small sins” or not, they remain far from harmless. The very nature of sin lies in its progressiveness. Keller notes that “every grudge wants to be murder. Every lust wants to be adultery.” And “every self-pity is an idolatry of…something more important than God.” Sin’s motto could well be “never enough.”
Sin desensitizes us over time, even as it starts to take root. Many folks reach the point where they don’t even detect their sin anymore (Psalm 36:2). We can’t repent over what we fail to see, whether it’s the rude student who tells his professor he was on his cell phone the whole class because he has trouble with distractions. Or “It’s just who I am” to excuse grudges or self-centeredness. No wonder scripture says we must “rule over it.”
When God rebuked Cain for his unacceptable offering, Cain could have repented. God encouraged him to “do well,” but clearly Cain didn’t want to do well according to God’s definition. His rejection of God moved him straight into sin’s backyard. From there to anger and from anger to the murder of his brother. He could have snipped sin in the bud, but he didn’t.
Friend, let’s not be like Cain. God calls us in the midst of whatever temptation we’re facing to turn from it and “do well.” Do well by dismissing anything that separates you from God. Don’t be a sitting duck.