The Sin We No Longer Call Sin

“Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people.” Ephesians in 5:3 

Sin we justify: Social media. Overspending. Gluttony. Comparison. Pornography or lustful entertainment.

Reflection Questions:

1. What behavior have I softened with different language?
   
   
2. Where have I felt conviction recently but ignored it?
   
   
3. What sin feels “normal” in my life right now?

3-Day Devotional Guide:

Day 1 – Illumination
 Read Ephesians 5:1–14 slowly.
 Ask God to highlight anything that applies personally.

Day 2 – Naming
 Write down specific sins plainly.
 Avoid vague language.

Day 3 – Cleansing
 Pray Psalm 51 out loud.
 Sit quietly afterward and receive grace.

Heavenly Father, I don’t want to live numb. If I have renamed sin to protect my comfort, forgive me Jesus, I want to give up all the things that are keeping me from living as You have called me to live. Restore sensitivity in my conscience Lord, help me call things what You call them. Help me to give up my flesh and my excuses, I am done letting the enemy lead my life. I want to walk in freedom with the Holy Spirit leading all my choices. Thank you for grace when I forget and the constant reminder that You are always with me. Lead me Jesus, thank You for the wilderness that teaches me so much about how You want me to live. It’s in Jesus’ Holy Name I pray, Amen.

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and NOT losing weight?

Hey there friend, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach. I gained 100 pounds in my late twenties and struggled for years to get it off. Seven years ago, I found a basic system that worked and has helped me lose 90 of those pounds. I’ve been working with women in online fitness and nutrition ever since to break chains of diet culture, embrace their bodies and fueling instead of dieting. 

 In this podcast, I'll teach you how to:

• • Lose Weight in a Way that honors God without obsessing about the scale
  • Meal Plan and Prep for Your Family
  • Follow a MACRO based plan that allows you to eat the foods you love.
  • Recognize and pray through triggers keeping you stuck.
  • I’ll help you Plan your week and schedule your self-care time.
  • Cultivate a spirit of self-discipline in your workouts you actually enjoy.
   
  It's time to give God your health journey and watch Him make you new, from the inside, OUT.

Join The Biblical Weight Loss Framework: https://www.herweightlossmindset.com/framework

Join my FREE Community: https://bit.ly/JoinTheChristianWeightLossCommunity

Join my Insiders List with weekly tips for weight loss for Christian women: http://herweightlossmindset.com/herweightlossmindsetinsiders

Transcript

Uncomfortable Truths

We got pretty deep in the last episode, didn't we? And so I'm glad you're here, because today it's not going to get any easier. Today, we're talking about the sin that we don't call sin anymore.

Today, we're going to talk about these uncomfortable things, not the dramatic headline-grabbing rebellion, but the quiet compromises and the ones that blend in, the ones that culture celebrates and the ones that we excuse.

In the letter to Ephesians 5, verse 3, Paul writes, Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God's people. Are you sick of trying diet after diet and not losing weight?

Are you tired of doubting your ability to actually lose weight in a healthy way? Do you wish you could find a laid out for you plan that will help you stay accountable to your goals?

Hey, friends, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach. I gained 100 pounds in my late 20s and struggled for years to get it off. Nine years ago, I found a system that works and has helped me lose over 90 of those pounds.

I've worked with women in online fitness and nutrition ever since.

In this podcast, I'll teach you how to reframe your thoughts about weight loss and your ability to achieve lasting results and lose weight in a way that honors God without obsessing about the scale and meal plan and prep for your family.

So grab your pre-workout and let's chat. I'm going to be real honest with you.

I have felt God call me very specifically this lent to give up a few things, to give up social media, to give up sugar, to fast once a week, and the struggle has been real. Social media was a pretty easy one for me. I haven't missed that at all.

But I find myself constantly thinking about food or craving food or I wake up and instantly think about how yesterday I said this or did this and how I'm just constantly finding myself in the old repeated patterns. It's negative self-talk.

It's self-sabotage. It's all of these things. And fasting, my first fast, it was all I could do all day was think about food.

And it got to the point where it was like by Monday, I had almost a breakdown. And thank God for my husband. He's so amazing.

430 in the morning, he's wrapping me in prayer. I'm crying. He's crying.

Like we're having this whole moment because this season of Lent is hard. And I have made so many compromises in my faith lately. Like I'm so sick of myself and the same old excuses.

And so today, I really want you to be open minded because we're talking about the sin that we don't call sin anymore. God's word is clear about so many things.

Yet even as Christians, we sacrifice our conviction because it's hard to fast sugar, especially when our church does doughnuts Sunday, the first Sunday of every month. Like just don't go, you know? That's the thing God's telling me.

Just don't go. You don't have to go. So if you are in a place where you are ready to finally lay down your compromises, reach out to me about one-on-one coaching.

Join the biblical weight loss framework. You're not alone in this. These are things that we're always going to struggle with because the enemy hates that you're wanting to deal with these things.

But that doesn't mean that we stop or we give up. That means we lean in harder.

Renaming Sin

And so today, we're going to revisit the verse that I just read. Ephesians 5.3, Paul writes, Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God's people.

No place. No place. That is strong language, but here is what's sobering.

Most of us are not committing scandalous public sins, but we're committing socially acceptable ones. We scroll for hours and call it unwinding. We overspend and call it self-care.

We consume explicit content and call it struggle. We overeat and call it stress relief. We compare constantly and call it staying connected.

We gossip and call it processing. We chase affirmation and call it vulnerability. We rename sin so it feels less serious, but renaming sin does not actually remove its power in our life.

Sin thrives in compromise, in softened language, and over time, something very dangerous happens. Conviction dolls and at first the Holy Spirit whispers, this isn't helping you. This is shaping your heart in an ungodly way.

This is pulling you away from me. But if we repeatedly override conviction, we stop feeling it. And spiritual numbness is more dangerous than spiritual struggle.

Struggle means you still care, you're still trying. Numbness means you've adapted. And Lent is a season to recover and experience that sensitivity, to ask God to forgive you and lead you in His truth.

We do this because He calls us holy. This is not about rigid behavior management. Holiness is about alignment with the Spirit.

It's about being formed into the likeness of Christ. And Christ is not casual about sin. He is compassionate towards sinners, but he is never casual about sin.

And why? Because sin always promises comfort and it delivers bondage.

Subtle Destructive Habits

So let's name a few honestly. Social media. It can connect you.

It can encourage you, but it can also cultivate comparison, envy, discontentment, pride. If your peace rises and falls with what you see online, it has mastery over you. It is an idol in your life.

If you're spending more time on your phone than you are in prayer and in the Bible, it's an idol in your life. Overspending.

Overspending can feel so empowering in the moment, but underneath it is often insecurity, fear, or the need to feel significant. Pornography or lustful entertainment, it may feel private, but it reshapes how you see people, especially your spouse.

It trains your brain towards fantasy. It distorts intimacy. Let's talk about gluttony.

Not just overeating occasionally, but turning to food repeatedly for comfort instead of turning to God. And when I talk about gluttony, I'm talking about sitting in your couch through the day, like I have lately, and constantly thinking about food.

Maybe you're not overeating sugar. Maybe you're not overeating anything. But your thoughts are more on sugar about God, or food, than on God.

So the second you start to think about food, say, Lord, why am I thinking this? I want to think about you instead. Let's talk.

Let's call out comparison, scrolling through other people's lives and quietly resenting your own. None of these are culturally shocking. But spiritually, every single one of these matter.

Because here's the key, sin does not have to be dramatic to be destructive. The enemy rarely starts with something extreme. He starts with something subtle, something tolerable, something explainable.

And if it's never confronted, it becomes part of your life. It shapes what you love. It shapes what you crave.

It shapes what you justify.

Lentʼs True Purpose

And this season of Lent is a gift because it forces honesty. It asks, what have I normalized that Jesus would confront? What would he flip tables over in my life?

What have I excused that the Spirit has been nudging me about? Not so you spiral into shame, but so you wake up because conviction is kindness. If God didn't love you, he would let you stay numb, but he loves you too much to let you stay the same.

He interrupts our time of weakness and sin. He whispers, he reminds us, he convicts us. And sometimes during Lent, that conviction feels sharper.

You may feel more aware of your impatience, more aware of your consumption habits, more aware of your thought life. It's not condemnation. It's his light breaking through.

Darkness feels really comfortable when you're used to it. And light can feel exposing. This is God's mercy.

Because once something is named, it can be surrendered. And surrendered things lose power in our lives. So I want you to ask yourself this very brave question this week.

What have you renamed? What behavior would you feel uncomfortable to call sin, but deep down you know it's shaping you? Say it out loud.

Not dramatically. No theatrics here. Just honestly.

Because repentance does not begin with self-hatred or shame, but confronting the truth that's keeping us from connecting with Jesus. And when we have clarity in this area of our life, God leaves us to freedom in Him.

When we name it out loud, the enemy no longer holds that power over us. So this Lent, remember that this isn't about you and what you're giving up.

This is about feeling the missing thing and leaning into prayer for the world, for your chains to be broken, for hurting people in your life. Let God show you what He wants you to pray for. He will lead you perfectly.

Lent is about feeling bad or detoxing from sugar or weight loss.

The goal is to feel close to God again, to feel conviction, to feel closeness, intimacy with your Holy Father, to feel the weight of sin and the relief of grace as He takes that off of you. Holiness is not about restricting.

It is about His protection and divine providence over your life. The God who calls you to purity is the same God who empowers you to walk in it. So this week, we're not avoiding the uncomfortable anymore.

We're leaning into it. We're having the courage to ask God to show you the areas of our life that we have softened or compromised, and trust that anything He reveals, He will heal.

Weekly Reflection

As you lean into prayer and reflection this week, I want you to ask yourself these three questions. What behavior have I softened with different language? What are you justifying?

Where have I felt conviction recently but ignored it? What sin feels normal in my life right now? And then as we lean into this three-day devotional guide, I want you to focus on Ephesians 5, chapter 5, verses 1–14, and read it slowly.

And then ask the Lord to highlight anything that applies to you personally. And then day two, you're going to name it. I want you to write down your specific sins plainly.

Be specific, no vague language here, because what we name and pray over and repent from, the enemy no longer holds over our life. And then day three, you're going to pray Psalm 51 out loud.

And then sit quietly afterward with your hands open on your lap and receive God's grace. This is the day of cleansing. Heavenly Father, I don't want to live numb.

If I have renamed sin to protect my comfort, forgive me, Jesus, I want to give up all the things that are keeping me from living as you have called me to live. Restore sensitivity in my conscious, Lord. Help me call things what you call them.

Help me to give up my flesh and my excuses. I am done letting the enemy lead my life. I want to walk in freedom with the Holy Spirit, leading all of my choices, thoughts, and actions.

Thank you, Father, for grace when I forget, and the constant reminder that you are with me. You always lead me, Jesus. Thank you for the wilderness that teaches me so much about how you want me to live.

Let me honor you in all I do. It's in Jesus' holy name, I pray. Amen.