Got some wart remover?

Ok, prepare yourself. This is a pretty gross analogy (as suggested by the title)

I have discovered over the past few weeks that sin is like a wart. How did I discover that? Well, I have one on my hand. Yeah, I know. It's gross. But hey, I think I finally killed it. And NO you may not see it if it grows back. This is taking vulnerability, people. That and the fact that I'm sitting behind a computer and know you can't see me while I write this.
So the question: How did I come to that conclusion? How did I look at this little patch of nastiness on my hand and think "Hey, it's sin!" Well I'll tell you. (Didn't see that one coming, did you?)

A few months ago I was driving to cell and saw this random spot on my hand where something was appearing. There were a few little dots and my first thought was "hey, I bet those are roots of a wart." I asked my mom and sister what they thought (because I was too embarrassed to tell anyone else) and they said not to freak out, to just watch it for a few days and see if it really did grow into a wart. So against my better judgement I waited and watched as this weird place did, indeed, turn into a wart. Now, you may think that my first reaction when I saw that it was fully grown was to run to the store and buy something to get it off. Nope. By that point I had accepted the wart and was moving on. I thought about getting medicine every time I went by a store, but was too lazy to actually do anything about it. When I went out in public I would just put a bandaid on it so nobody would see it. After a few weeks I finally bought a remover and started putting it on my skin. Well, the stuff in the little bottle solidified and didn't work. So then I tried these patch things that my sister had and those didn't work either. Finally I went and got another bottle of the medicine stuff and it has (I think!) finally worked. I saw the roots dying and it finally came off.

Ok, enough about my gross wart. What's the point? The point is, a wart is like sin. When something first pops up in your life, you may not immediately recognize it as sin. You may glance at that PG-13 movie with just a little bit of nudity and say "Hey, I think there's a problem with that." but not actually do anything because everyone around you says it's ok. So you continue to watch the movies and slowly the little bit of nudity becomes a bigger, more disgusting, and harder to remove issue. No longer can you just turn away without repercussions. You're hooked and you don't even know how you got there.
But here's the deal: When you ignore a problem long enough, you're desensitized to it. So instead of taking it to the cross immediately when you realize it's a huge problem, you wait a while. After all, what's three more weeks? Yes you realize it's a problem every time you go to church, so you slap a bandaid on it and pretend that it doesn't exist. But otherwise, you don't really mind it that much. Eventually you buy into something that looks like hope but is faulty. Maybe your friend tries to help you out of the mess or you try to do it by yourself. But that just doesn't cut it. So you use the method that your friend used, but still you find yourself drawn back to the same issues. So you finally go to the good stuff: Jesus. And when you have gone to the source of life, you discover that the process takes time. First you must kill off the bad skin on top, but that's not enough. You have to dig out the roots underneath. And then you have to make sure that the skin that regrows is good. Why? Because if you don't pull out the roots of your problem (watching those movies with nudity) then it will simply regrow. And if the skin that grows back isn't healthy (now you're watching movies with awful language) then you have a whole new problem.

So here it is: Sin is like a wart. It looks and feels nasty, but is easy to ignore. Don't ignore it! You're not whole with it in your life! As painful as that sin may be to deal with, You will be better for getting rid of it. And getting rid of it COMPLETELY. Don't settle for your best friend's cure, go to Jesus. He will help you through the deep places and bring you out so much better in the end.

What do you compare sin to?