This message is for every believer who knows they belong to God, yet still chooses—intentionally and knowingly—to step into sin for the sake of momentary pleasure. You call it “every now and then” because it feels rare, but you still allow yourself to smoke, indulge in sexual immorality, or flirt with tarot cards and palm readings because the thrill of “knowing your future” feels harmless. You excuse bitterness, envy, recreational drugs, drunkenness, or consuming ungodly content because you’ve convinced yourself it’s not that serious.
You may reason, “God knows my heart; I’m only human.” You remind yourself that your spirit is willing but your flesh is weak. You even point to Paul’s words in Romans 7:15—“The things I want to do, I don’t do; the things I don’t want to do, I sometimes find myself doing.” And with that, you quietly conclude: If Paul struggled, who am I to resist slipping up once in a while?
The Bible was never meant to be taken out of context or treated like a buffet where we pick and choose verses to excuse our disobedience. If you keep reading Romans 7:17–25, Paul isn’t giving believers a free pass—he’s exposing the brutal war between his desire to honor God and the sin still present in his flesh. He delights in God’s law, yet he feels the pull of sin waging war against his mind, dragging him toward what he hates. In anguish he cries, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me?”—and immediately declares the only answer: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Paul’s confession doesn’t normalize sin; it unmasks it. He wasn’t shrugging his shoulders at weakness—he was running to Christ for rescue, strength, and victory.
Romans 6:1–2 says, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”
Have you reached the place where your response to sin is, like Paul’s, “God forbid”? Have you come to the point where sin no longer feels like a temptation you can bargain with, but something you reject immediately—because you’ve learned the flesh is not your friend? If you have not, as Apostle Arome Osayi teaches, Satan will continue to entice you with what is in your heart. That desire will put you in a position where you are no longer capable of balanced thinking. It provokes your will to make a choice you did not process. Your defense protocol is bypassed, and you become a victim of something you are wiser than.
“Once in a while” is a crack that Satan will always use as leverage.
Think of musical chairs. A circle of seats—always one fewer than the players. The music plays, everyone moves with confidence… until it stops. Chaos erupts. One person is left standing, a chair is removed, and the tension rises until only two players and one chair remain. The music halts, one sits, one loses, and the “winner” walks away.
Now imagine a different version. The winner—you—has a rope tied to your hand, the other end fastened to the chair. You celebrate and walk away, convinced the game is over. But after a few steps, the rope snaps tight and drags you back. The music starts again. You run. You sit. You “win.” You try to leave—only to be pulled back once more. Eventually, you realize you’re not progressing at all. You’re stuck in a repeating loop with no finish line.
This is the danger of “once in a while.” Every breakthrough becomes a false victory when the sin you tolerate acts like that rope—pulling you back to the place you thought you left behind. You convince yourself that because it’s rare, grace will cover it. But instead, it becomes the very thing that keeps you spiritually stagnant. You start believing that thirty days of obedience earn you one day of indulgence. Yet that one day becomes the rope. No matter how hard you try to grow, you’re pulled backward and forced to start again.
You may think it’s harmless, but what you’re practicing is iniquity—ongoing, willful rebellion against God. It reveals a heart lacking the fear of the Lord. Psalm 19:7–9 says, “The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.” When that fear truly lives in you, it becomes the foundation of wisdom and discernment. But when sin becomes a casual pastime, wisdom is absent. You’ve chosen friendship with the world—and James warns that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). This is why David prayed in Psalm 19:13:
“Keep Your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.”
Another translation calls them “presumptuous sins”—a deliberate and conscious disobedience against God. David understood that compromise rarely happens all at once. It begins subtly: small permissions granted to the flesh, tiny crossings of what once felt like a clear boundary. Little by little, the line becomes blurred. And before you realize it, you are standing far beyond the place you once swore you would never go.
In John 17:14–16, Jesus declared that His followers are not of this world, and He prayed that the Father would protect them from the evil one while they remain in it. If you are a child of God, you belong to a higher Kingdom. Yet every time you compromise, you open doors to the very evil from which God desires to protect you. Your attempts to fit in, be accepted, or appear “normal” slowly lead you into the enemy’s web. In Genesis 4:7, the Lord warned Cain:
“If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
The danger of “once in a while” is that it slowly trains you to accept sin. Instead of mastering it, you allow it to master you.
In Part II, we’ll take a closer look at the “once in a while” choices believers often overlook and uncover what Scripture actually says about them. Small compromises may appear insignificant, but they create openings the enemy is quick to exploit.
