There was a man who had the habit each Sunday morning of going to the communion rail when he got to church, kneeling down and praying aloud, “Lord, take the cobwebs of sin out of my life.” He did this week after week. One Sunday, the pastor kneeled down beside the man. When he cried out “Lord, take the cobwebs of sin out of my life,” the pastor prayed aloud, “Lord, kill the spider!” That’s a solution that goes to the root of the problem.

You’ve probably heard that it is foolish for doctors to simply treat symptoms without trying to discover the root cause of the problem. Yet we often take that approach to things in our lives. It would be like seeing a water stain on the ceiling of your living room. You promptly go get a ladder, a bucket of paint and a brush, and you paint over the stain. The next time it rains, the stain is there again. So once again you paint over it. Have you really solved anything? Wouldn’t it make more sense to find the source of the leak and repair it?

People will often try to cover up their sins in order to  hide them from other people. You can fool people that way, but have you really solved the problem?

When we built our log home, the plans included a wraparound porch. The main reason is to protect the logs from the harsh Texas sun, but the aesthetic is wonderful. It adds so much to the beauty of our home, and we love it. But so do the spiders. For the first several years, the ceiling and walls of our porch were covered with spiderwebs. Thanks to a friend, we discovered a chemical treatment that is very effective at keeping the spiders – and their webs – away. I have to treat the porches a couple of times a year, but it is worth it. That is a much better solution than trying to knock down those webs day after day!

Jesus has the treatment we need for our sins, and thankfully it was a one time thing. It only needed to be done once, and that is what He did at Calvary. He got to the root of the problem.

Romans 6:5–10 ⁵ If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. ⁶ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷ because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. ⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

“He died to sin once for all.” The treatment was a one time thing, but we need to remember it daily. When we give into temptations, when we sin, we should confess our sins to God. Because of our faith in Christ, our Father reminds us of the payment Jesus made and the forgiveness we have for His sake. That forgiveness is our motivation to try to live a life more like Jesus.