Recognize the Enemy

For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. -- Hebrews 13:14
For several years I commuted via train.  One afternoon, I overheard an innocent comment that reminded me how easy it is to grow comfortable and feel at home with sin instead of seeing it for what it is.  Sin is an intruder.  It is a farce and usurper.  And one day it will be finished forever. 
I sat behind a grandpa who was telling his granddaughter about poisonous snakes; how venomous snakes are brightly colored but non dangerous snakes are brown/green for camouflage.
Death is the result of sin and thus, carnivorous behavior, camouflage, poison, and offensive and defense mechanisms.  Sin brought pain and fear, sickness and tears.  In the beginning all snakes were beautiful.  Sin opened the door for poison, lethal fangs, and made it so the "ugly" were more likely to survive.  And sin produced a ‘beauty’ – now marred -- of beautiful colors for venomous snakes even as it drove genetic selection to leave most snakes plain.
Sin tends to look beautiful and alluring...before you get too close.  
All beauty is from God but sin and Satan have twisted everything.  Intimacy.  Love.  Beauty.  Strength.  Leadership.  I have gotten so accustomed to sin, it is beyond me to even envision perfection. 
To imagine intimacy without lust. 
See love devoid of selfishness. 
Comprehend beauty, enduring, without vanity. 
Envision selfless strength devoid of pride or anger. 
Consider that leadership could be free from self-interest and arrogance.
I can’t even imagine what it was like in the beginning or what it will be in the end.
I truly see through a mirror dimly.  My eyes are dim.