With smoking prohibited in her house, one of my childhood friends had a disgusting habit of taking a puff or two on any cigarette butt she found. “But I only pick up the ones with lipstick stains on them,” she reassured me. Phew—at least her disgusting habit had a modicum of decency.

Like my sins have a modicum of decency, or so I think. Unlike the obvious indecent works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21—sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, sorcery, enmity, drunkenness and orgies. When I read that, I reach the obvious conclusion that my sins are pretty respectable compared to those sins. I give Colossians 3:5-9 a cursory glance—yep, not the sins I, a nice, pleasant Christian, would commit.

It’s a second and closer reading of those Galatians and Colossians verses that jolt me from my complacency. What are my decent sins doing there with the indecent ones? A smidge of jealousy about a friend’s accomplished children isn’t in the same category as sorcery. Doesn’t everyone get angry? There was nothing malicious about it; it was simply anger, and I was tired.

When we coddle our nice sins, there’s often a subtle shift in our thinking—that Jesus died for good people, the nice and polite ones who deserve salvation. We then seek out other good people and share the good news that they are not as bad as some people are, and Jesus came to improve on their already pleasant lives.

I might try to cover my sins with a veneer of polite excuses, but one of the hardest Scriptural truths for me to swallow is that there is no such thing as nice sins. Sin is sin. There’s no accommodating even the nicest of sins in God’s Word. Colossians 3:5 doesn’t say “put to death therefore the really bad sins and keep alive the good sins.” It states bluntly: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you. . .”

These third and fourth verses of the hymn “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy,” remind us why salvation never was and never will be through niceness and politeness.

Let not conscience make you linger,
nor of fitness fondly dream;
all the fitness He requireth
is to feel your need of Him.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
lost and ruined by the fall;
if you tarry till you're better,
you will never come at all.

“Nor of fitness or politeness or niceness fondly dream.”

Instead, come, poor and needy sinners, come, polite and pleasant sinners, come

“. . . everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.” (Isaiah 55:1-3)