Insights from Thomas a Kempis

I try to spend a few minutes every morning before I get to the work of the day reading something that will help nourish my soul. As of late, I have been reading from Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ. This morning I read something I found to be very true in my own walk. Thomas states,

If we eradicated one vice per year we should soon become perfect men. But often we see the opposite happen. We find we were better and more fault-free at the time of our conversion to God than many years afterwards.

I had a professor in college tell me that the closer to God we get, the larger the cross that saved us seems to be. The greater our sin becomes in our eyes. This is a good sign, he would tell us, for this showed that we were more heavily relying on God for our salvation and not on ourselves. On the other hand, other people would see our cross as getting smaller. It would appear to them that we were getting more and more righteous. I have to wonder is Thomas a Kempis was experiencing the same thing in his monastery.

Don't lose heart when you find yourself in sin another day. Christ' blood is just as good today as it was on the day you were saved. Rejoice that you have an advocate standing before the Father day after day pleading your case. "but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Romans 5:20 NASB).