By Jon Burnett
Often the last thing on your mind while sinning are the consequences involved. Satan pretty effectively stores the knowledge of your sin away while sinning, only to throw it back in your face when he�s done with you. He sets a trap for you with his �buy now, pay later� approach to pleasure, and once you�ve walked into that trap it�s just a matter of time before the bill must be paid.
Satan promises no interest for the first year and then chuckles when that first bill comes in the mail: guilt. To sin sexually provides pleasure only as long as Satan lets it, then he slams you with the realization of your sin and with all the anguish and sorrow that accompanies it. You become �loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts� (2 Tim 3:6). Regardless of past purity, you feel beyond the point of no return, without any way to turn back.
To add to such an already high price, the physical pain is often a price sin can bring into your life. After all, was it your heart alone that was pleased with sin? He takes back everything he gave you. The Romans� example of what not to do shows us the way to avoid some of that pain, �Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due� (Rom 1:27). But don�t think that your heterosexuality alone frees you from that pain, fornicators and adulterers are in the same boat on a not so lovely lake (1 Cor 6:9,10).
Satan�s goal is death by deception (Jam 1:15). He leads us into sin, fills us with a hint of pleasure, and then replaces our sinful sheets with a shroud of guilt and anguish. Yet in this there is still hope! Though your battle may be nearing its end, the war has already been won! Regardless of past sin, we are more than conquerors. Through Christ we share in the victory of faith! �For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world � our faith� (1 Jn 5:3,4). Death is the only point of no return; today is always the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2)!