When I was a new believer, I was zealous to obey Jesus. I spent a lot of time examining and critiquing myself in every area imaginable starting with my thoughts.
So one day I got the idea that I should make a list of my sins – and me being extremely left-brained and analytical, decided to make an Excel spreadsheet charting all of my sins. I would carry this sheet around with me all day long and when I sinned, I put a check in the appropriate cell. This soon changed into a number because I sinned several times per entry. I figure I would also examine weekly trends of each individual sin to identify particular problem areas.
But then I noticed something….as the weeks went by, I noticed that my chart had fewer and fewer numbers (or checks). I was thrilled that I was sinning less. I was feeling kind of good about myself. I thought I was well on my way to becoming a good Christian.
Then one day I noticed that there were no checks in the cells. I had been sin-free for about three days. It was then that I realized that I was NOT sinning less or becoming a “good” Christian. I knew that the Bible said something much different than my chart. Do I dare put myself on the level of Christ and proclaim to be sinless? No!!! I realized that sin is a part of me, my being, much like my arms or legs. Sin is who I am and I cannot rid myself of myself until Jesus changes my body of corrupt into incorruptible. I realized that my chart was nothing more than a waste of time – the fruit of a sin-tainted mind even with the best of intentions.
I thanked and praised Jesus for opening my eyes to the foolishness of this high-tech approach to self examination. I wonder if He was angry with me or laughing at me. (I find it a little funny looking back)
Boldly Proclaiming Christ 
If it helps, I laughed at this post. Spreadsheet indeed!! 😀Our sinfulness runs so deep and will do as long as Self is on the throne. It just takes one little dig at our precious selves to realise this. We should thank our God every day for His grace, and heaven forbid that we think we have had such a “good” day that we need not thank Him!
I laughed at the post as well, ha ha! And it’s especially funny to me since I am in the IT industry and spreadsheets to keep track of everything is part and parcel of my daily work life, from project costs to progress reports etc.
I enjoyed this …Jesus has a sense of humor, maybe He was laughing WITH you and not AT you!
I was also in the IT field so I’m always trying to think of ways to digitize my life and be more efficient electronically. My latest ‘project’ is check balancing but not using my checkbook – but a spreadsheet that looks like my checkbook complete with forumulas. (I’m using NeoOffice) I’m not good with numbers (or adding for that matter) so I create a simple forumula a voila! It’s done. (plus I can make it pretty and go crazy with the formatting) I live to format!!! 🙂