{"id":41121,"date":"2015-09-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/sin-reduces-our-script-to-scribbles\/"},"modified":"2015-09-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T00:00:00","slug":"sin-reduces-our-script-to-scribbles","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/sin-reduces-our-script-to-scribbles\/","title":{"rendered":"Sin Reduces our Script to Scribbles"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his book Newton: On the Christian Life<\/em>, author Tony Reinke recalls a metaphor John Newton used to illustrate the effects of indwelling sin:<\/p>\n\n

\n

Imagine a Christian sitting down with a blank page and pen. He begins to write out his perfectly scripted life, explaining how he would love others, how he would structure his prayer life, or how he would [build a beautiful Christian family]. But indwelling sin and Satan crouch at his elbow, disrupting every pen stroke and messing up every word and sentence as our Christian friend tries to write the script.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n

At every point in the Christian life [our own flesh] and Satan jab our elbow, and our pen skids across the page as our perfect plan is reduced to scribbles. This is a metaphor of the Christian life with indwelling sin. Yet the biggest problem is that sin is not at our elbow—our sin is in us!<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3770,3775,3996,4530,4575,4977,4978,5090],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-41121","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-destructive-sin","tax_ctp_tags-devil","tax_ctp_tags-flesh","tax_ctp_tags-need-for-salvation","tax_ctp_tags-original-sin","tax_ctp_tags-sin","tax_ctp_tags-sin-nature","tax_ctp_tags-struggle-against-sin"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"\nSin Reduces our Script to Scribbles - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/sin-reduces-our-script-to-scribbles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sin Reduces our Script to Scribbles - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his book Newton: On the Christian Life, author Tony Reinke recalls a metaphor John Newton used to illustrate the effects of indwelling sin: Imagine a Christian sitting down with a blank page and pen. 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