Forbidden fruit.

My YouTube feed got interesting the other day.

There was a video posted by a YouTube theologian I had never watched before. Something stirred in me, so I clicked it, and he was talking about a man who had grown famous on the interwebs for leaving his sordid life behind to follow Jesus.

And then this man decided to become a woman and is convinced that God is pleased with this decision.

I thought to myself, "Where have I heard something similar before?"

And then it hit me—the Garden of Eden.

Think of Eve standing next to the forbidden fruit and the serpent asking her, "Did God really say...?"

And then think of Eve mulling things over, justifying her decision to defy God to do what her heart desires.

Here's the thing: the sin itself isn't the issue. 

We all sin. We all make mistakes.

It's the justification of said sin and the denial of repentance that's the problem.

It's the denial of truth that can be as poisonous as a bite from the apple.

In other words, why let go of your salvation to hold on to sin?

One may claim "once saved, always saved" in this situation. And there is truth to the fact that those of us who are to be with God will be with God forever.

But those who are to be with God know something deeply in our core: that repentance, the confession of and turning away from our sin, is the only way to turn fully towards God.

And if God is redeeming the world back to its perfect state, why justify any act that stands outside that perfection?

I pray for this man–for you, for me, for all of us–that we persevere in the faith, never slipping away from God's truth in favor of Satan's deceptions.