DEEP CRIMSON: TEMPTATION MARKER LINKED TO INIQUITY SURVIVAL, RELAPSE AND SPREAD

Types of Temptation Markers

Imagine you have a cancer patient. Then the medical team after treatment using only one of the marker* known to them declare you cancer free. Then one of the scientist discovers a 2nd marker, unknown to the team. The team is excited because they were perplexed why the patients keep on relapsing, yet using the markers they had, had all pointed to fact that all was contained.

NB: This is an oversimplified analogy of an otherwise complex matter; hope you get the gyst.

*Cancer markers are substances made by cancer cells or by normal cells in response to cancer in the body. The medical team uses them to make diagnosis, make a treatment and medication action plan, assess progress, track for desired outcomes & help you live a full yet fruitful life.

I used to envy people who have nice sins like forgetting to pray for a friend in need. Yet some of us struggle with the earth moving kind of sin like the lack of purpose in handling one of the big 3: Money, Power & Sex. Yet, if we check very well, some of us aren’t as lucky and struggle with all three. Stuck in whirlwind of a self-destructive or self-sabotaging vicious cycle leaving charred bodies, things or relationships behind.

Well, that was until I understood that there are 2 markers of sin. Most of us know only of one, yet we can only be free once we tackle the issues and get cleared using the 2nd marker as well.

Scarlet sin is bright red and superficial while Crimson Sin is deep red. As taught by Rev. Nick Korir during his Not Guilty sermon series at Nairobi Chapel Ngong Road. Isaiah 1:18

Table of Contents:

• Types of Sin Markers. 
• Scarlet Marker of Sin. 
• Crimson Marker of Sin. 

-Sin by commission and omission. 

-If you hide your sin, you will not succeed. 

-Sin is not a secret we should die as a slaves to. 

-Identity Crisis: Have you condemned yourself a slave to the secrets you refuse to confess?

-Where do we get our identity from?

-How can we use the crimson marker to get to root cause of our sin?

-Getting out of slavery & staying free plan

Scarlet Marker of Sin

Scarlet sin is relatively easy to deal with. Scarlet sin, like the name itself is the glaring type of sin. Even a blind person, miles away can call you out on account of how bright this sin is. Its things like I am corrupt, an alcoholic, fornicator, murderer, idolater, people pleaser or whatever else you seem to be stuck doing that if people found out would embarrass you, yet you can’t seem to get yourself unstuck from etc

This type of sin we can identify pretty easily and if you want to be helped we can put measures to rehabilitate and support you to resist the temptation to backslide.

Pretty easy, right…

Not so, every now and them, when temptation strikes or some type of trigger (most of the time, not even known to ourselves), off you go like cattle to the slaughter house, putting your mission in life on the line, to chase the high or out of the rut promised by the fleeting temptation.

If we go to the original sin of Adam. The scarlet sin is the disobedience of eating the apple kind of sin. All you have to do is put a wall around the border of the tree and Adam, and you won’t have to disobey God. Build the Wall! Build the Wall! – Make the World Great Again.

That’s where the 2nd and to me, the most important sin. The root cause of the sin, which is also a kind of sin.

Crimson Marker of Sin

Why did Adam, a man who had walked with God in the cool of the garden of Eden, falter when the choice of Eve or God was presented to him?

Let me ask it this way, when you were younger, did you ever add salt to a story (gossip) about another person, just so that you could fit in or be accepted among the great story tellers of middle primary?

You can say, you were insecure about your identity, right? Afraid to stick with the boring plain truth that you stretched it and now you are a big fat liar, who even if no one else ever found out the source of the fake news, you will forever live with the shame of being a liar. You own the shame as a secret that you wear every day and now even has become your identity, you never seem to stop telling half-truths or lies and even start believing your lies and can’t tell them apart from the truth or keep trying to untangle, and all you can hear is the tune that you now tango to with the devil calling you a liar, all the while drowning your senses never to hear the beautiful shame lifting tune of liberation set aside for you.

Sin by commission and omission

Crimson type like the shade of the color is deep. Similarly, this sin runs deep, deep like the dizzying depths the lies have taken you to. I like to say that it is also hidden in plain sight, since its so engrained in you, it has become you. When someone calls them out, you become so overprotective or defensive because it feels like they are condemning you, yet, they are just calling out the issue, that in your head, is also intimately part of you.

So, why did Adam eat the apple? He had an express instruction from his friend, their creator not to. Consumed by the insecurity of saying no to the one God created for him Adam gobbled the thing up?

Back when I was in middle school in Eldoret, children used to call each other names, I may have been part of that as well. For me, of the ones I was called, the ones that got to me then were: thin frame, pointy head, thin legs & big knees – to me this spelled “not good enough” – wish we had INEOS 1:59 back then, then I would have known that I had the ingredients of the making of a world champion in that "not good enough"…Sorry, I digress!

So, one day when I could afford it, I bought this big fat car that could only sit my wife and I, yet we had 3 children. I guess like Adam & Eve, the allure of the promises in the advert I saw in the dailies: that I will be handsome, popular, smart, attractive, more manly, more accepted, more trending, more fitting in etc. “If only I could, just get me one”, this curiosity had me going out to sniff what other ‘truths’ the author of the advert for the car knew about me and how I could acquire them for myself.

So, when my wife asked me where the children would sit, it’s like I woke up from the lull by the sirens, and it dawned on me that I must have been possessed by something to bypass that obvious criteria in my choices. Turned out the ‘truths’ in earlier paragraph that I went out seeking were actually lies. I thank God for the Grace & partnership of my wife, who was able to pick it up and together we came up with a brilliant get-out-of-big-fat-two-door-car.

For me the deep bruising crimson markers were in response to the mean words. For you it could be someones anger towards you. For someone else it could be deep betrayal by a friend or family member or even a closest of confidants. Whatever the case, this deep crimson has been shaping you - consciously or subconsciously - in your choices from how you dress to what relationships you will keep or enter.

What consequences have you had to deal with out of your choices and have you ever taken time to do some deep work and find out what drives them? Is it some sin of insecurity? Is it the sin of disobeying God by overlooking what He calls you, and believing what others call you, flinging you into a vicious cycle of self-making ourselves, following & keeping up with the ‘it’-crew, soaking up on the intermittent highs of the escapades and the identity they promise gushing through our dry veins, until you wake up and we still are living with the shame, the insecurity, the secrets?

The thing is this, whether you know it or not, there is a root cause fault in all our identities (I guess since the original sin days) that by omission or commission informs your choices. The sad bit is that, ignorance is not defense. Even if the only sin you can think of in your life is the sin of not praying enough for your friends or the poor of this world. That is just the scarlet type, there is still the crimson one that whether you know of it or not, it drives you and the destination is still the same.

Now that we know of a 2nd marker, no one can claim to have a right diagnosis of our struggle with the cancer of sin, unless we make a diagnosis using both the shallow and the deep markers. Further to that, one cannot be declared cancer free just because the scarlet marker is clear and under control. We still need to check the crimson marker. Then, you’ll seek the right help to stay free and live making choices that liberate you to purpose.

If you hide your sin, you will not succeed.

That’s what Proverbs 28:13 says, you also know what the authors of the same Holy Book say on the wages of sin.

The greatest and only lie the devil has been peddling since Eden, is that our sins are secrets that are to be guarded at all costs even if it means owning & becoming them. Then we partner with him in hiding them in plain sight, so well that we can never find them to isolate and expunge them when it is time to let them go. It’s like when those folks who used to lock the sugar in a cabinet, then hide the key in a most secure place, that even they forget where they hide the key, now you have to be beaten up for making the key lost and now we have to break one of the beautiful wall units wooden & glass doors. 

Sin is not a secret we should die as a slaves to.

However, many have come and gone and never delved into the crimson depths to untangle themselves from this type of sin. It guides and shapes our lives sometimes into some fluke or chance success or dizzying failures. Whichever the case, the wages of it all at the end remains death.

Once in a while we get tired of relapses that are evident as Scarlet type of sin. “Why can’t we break away from the vicious cycle?” we often lament. That’s usually a good place to be. However, instead of delving deeper. We quickly find ourselves drawn to the next distraction the devil has laid out for us with the false hope of trying out the next big thing. Only for you to tire from the purposelessness & fruitlessness of it all. The cycle continues, keeping you in the shallow end.

Identity Crisis: Have you condemned yourself a slave to the secrets you refuse to confess?

God freely gives us an identity as heirs in His Kingdom and all else added unto it, yet we choose to overlook this identity set for ourselves.

Instead, as free willed individuals like our forefather Adam, we choose to believe the greatest liar ever lived and co-partner with him to turn our sins into deep seated secrets that we own into our new identity.

“If a man has in himself the soul of a slave will he not become one no matter what his birth...? If a man has within him the soul of a free man, will he not become respected and honoured in his own city inspite of his misfortune?” George S. Clason

Quick question: Do you have a soul of a free man or that of a slave? What soul did Adam have: that of a free man or a slave? Most importantly, what are we slaves to right now?

Where do we get our identity from?

Galatians 4:7 – Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

Romans 8:14 – For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

2 Corinthians 6:18 – “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

Galatians 3:26 – For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:16-17 – The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

How can we use the crimson marker to get to root cause of our sin?

It is easy to put up barriers to deal with what the scarlet marker has pointed out: like what Adam should have done. Put a wall around the forbidden fruity tree. Then he wouldn’t have eaten the damn fruit, maybe the snake then would have even eaten it.

However, putting a barrier around situations that set us up for scarlet types of sin can sometimes lead one to live a life of relapsing, second guessing oneself, stricken with fear to live, or worse still live a sad tasteless life that never attracts anyone to the way, the truth and the life John 14:6.

Therefore to effectively tackle sin, you have to be well equipped to read the crimson markers of sin and get a correct diagnosis, make a treatment and medication action plan, assess progress, track for desired outcomes & live a full yet fruitful life.

Getting out of slavery & staying free plan:

1.      Discipleship class or programme (a place you can delve deeper into the word of God and know the truths He says and has for you – Jeremiah 29: 11 – 13 & Ephesians 6:17)

2.      Regular meetings with one or more individual(s) that you make into a small band of brothers or sisters (I would advice you stick to your gender on this and also this can be seasonal e.g. different or same people every 3 to 5 years)

3.      Have an intimate, deep, accountable and real conversation with the small band of brothers and sisters, guided by the following format* (Note: these will help get you diving deep into your life, make a plan & execute it – you must appreciate the areas that a full & fruitful life entails: Spiritual, Health, Family, Finances, Work, Social, Serving, Education):

a.      How are you?

b.      What’s working well for you?

c.      What challenges are you facing? You could also ask it this way: Is there anything that could prevent you to become who God calls you out to be?

d.      How will you tackle these challenges?

e.      How can I help?

f.       How can I pray for you?

*Adopted from Chapter 5 of the book: Seasons: The stages of life by Muriithi Wanjau also available on https://www.muriithiwanjau.com/

4.      Get professional help if required (counselor, coach etc)

5.      All the best breaking free