I remember going to the dentist one time as a child to have a cavity filled. I thought it was sort of fun to have a numb tongue and cheek from the Novocain. I told the hygienist that I could bite my cheek and not even feel it. She told me to be careful, because even though I couldn’t feel it in the moment, I might hurt myself and feel it later. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that even though I couldn’t feel the pain, I could still be hurting myself. That advice settled in and I realized that I shouldn’t bite myself for fun just because I couldn’t feel it.
In the same way, we can become numb and callous toward sin. Even if we can’t feel the sin or sense its harm, from God’s vantage point, He knows sin always does damage. The Apostle Paul writes to Christians in the book of Ephesians instructing them, “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed” (Ephesians 4:17-19).
As Christ’s followers, God doesn’t want us to live like the surrounding world that doesn’t acknowledge God and His ways. The world is numb to sin, darkened in their understanding, separated from God, insensitive to evil and impurity. Christ would have us continue to love and show grace to the people of the world, but to not follow their lives and ways as a pattern. Christ is renewing the way that we think as we follow Him and we will become increasingly aware of God’s good, pleasing and perfect will (Rom. 12:1-2). Even when we can’t feel the pain, sin still does its damage. Our loving Heavenly Father doesn’t want us to hurt ourselves.