After decades of having really bad posture especially when sitting despite my mother’s warnings as a child I needed to stand up straight with my shoulders back, I finally in response to a health scare and with the help of two professionals learned how to stop slumping and to sit up straight. Though I still need improvement with my standing, the sitting improved remarkably.
But then something happened. I started getting sloppy. I stopped paying attention to my sitting posture. I forgot to be conscious about it. I started going downhill. Literally. Slump, slump, right back to my slumping. I went backward to my old way of sitting without even noticing I had done it! I had quit paying attention to my sitting posture.
And because I was so used to sitting the old slumped way, going back to my bad posture made perfect sense, felt totally familiar, and didn’t strike me in the least as problematic. But praise God, I knew better by now. I needed to quickly return to my new good posture and go on from there doing what I had learned was right and leaving behind the wrong.
Sound familiar? Sometimes we deliberately, consciously, purposely, pridefully, and foolishly go back to old sin and need to repent and turn back to God and His ways. BUT SOMETIMES WE SIMPLY GET SLOPPY WITH OUR NEW WAY OF GODLY LIVING AND SLIDE BACK INTO OLD SIN WITHOUT EVEN NOTICING BECAUSE THE OLD WRONGDOING IS SO FAMILIAR, COMFORTABLE, PLEASURABLE, ETC.
Regardless the reason for returning to sin, we need to repent and return to God and what is right in His eyes. And we need to be REALLY CAREFUL to NOT BE SLOPPY about godly living. We need to humbly, consciously, committedly, devotedly, purposefully yield ourselves to God and do what is pleasing in His sight!
“Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” Hebrews 13:20-21 NKJV