My husband raises some kind of baby birds every spring. He has hatched chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, guineas and quail. Sometimes there is a bad egg in the batch that he puts in the incubator, which sits in the garage. And he normally disposes of those eggs before they start stinking. But, this year there was a terrible smell coming from that incubator! My son and I both told him that it smelled worse than bad…it smelled rank!!! He was like “Oh, it’s not that bad!” The smell was so bad that the cat, that stays almost perma-glued to the lawnmower seat, had to move!! I think my husband had gotten so used to the scent that he could no longer even smell it. He was nose blind to the stink!!

It reminded me of a time when I had to make a trip in my boss’s company vehicle for a few days. There was a terrible smell in it as well, which my boss also said was “not that bad!” And surprisingly after riding in it for a while, I could no longer smell the bad smell either. Even when I got out and got back in, the smell was gone. I became nose blind to the stink in a very short amount of time.

This is how sin is in our lives. When we first encounter it, we can tell that it is really bad. We notice that it stinks up our lives and is not right. But, the longer that we allow it to stay, the less we notice it. It doesn’t bother us as bad as it did at first. And pretty soon we are so nose blind that we don’t even realize that it’s there!!!

1 John 2:1-3 (KJV) My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.

Hebrews 3:13 (KJV) But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.