The Little Sins

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes. Song of Solomon 2:15

Just as we are not to despise the day of small things (cf. Zech. 4:10) in terms of God's work in us and for us, neither are we to trifle with those sins that seem small in our lives. For just as little foxes spoil the vines, even little sins can spoil the soul. Dead flies in a perfume container can cause it to stink and so do the sins in the heart (cf. Eccl. 10:1).

In our house, we had an object lesson of how this works. We began to notice little gnats everywhere. It got worse and worse. So do you know what we did? We began to take cleanliness very seriously. We cleaned the house. We wiped the counters. We mopped the floors. We took out the trash. And so on. But the gnats didn't go away. In fact, they got worse. Even with fly traps all over the house, they didn't go away.

Then we noticed that we had allowed a sweet potato to basically become compost in a cabinet next to the kitchen. We disposed of it. Things got better, but not completely. Then, a few days later, we discovered another one that had somehow missed our notice earlier. It wasn't until we had disposed of all the hidden, rotting food that the gnats began to disappear.

So it is with our souls. One rotting sin, hidden away in our hearts, is enough to corrupt the heart. Cleaning up our lives in other ways, while keeping that one sin, will not save us from the corruption it will breed in our hearts. We must part with every known sin. We must repent of every secret sin, no matter how hidden away it seems, no matter how small.

And the great news is that when we confess our sins, our God in Christ is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn. 1:9).