My husband deals with convicted felons every day. It is amazing how many stories he hears that begin, “I didn’t do anything. I just went with my friends and then all of a sudden…” It may seem unfair for someone to be punished for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, if indeed that is truly what happened, but what about common sense? Why go for a stroll in a snake pit? Wisdom says the consequences will not be worth the adrenalin rush.
We often dally in sin and think nothing of it. We are as bad as young daredevils who think they will never die. “I’m strong; nothing will happen to me. Besides, God knows my heart, and He knows I am not a bad person.”
Have you ever looked at the lists of sins scattered throughout the New Testament? It always amazes me the failings I find listed side by side, things I would never have put in the same category.
Look at 2 Tim 3:2-4. For people shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Which of us is not sometimes proud, does not sometimes forget to be grateful, or lacks a little self-control in some areas of our lives? Yet the Holy Spirit includes those among the brutal, the ruthless, and the treacherous.
Then there is Romans 1:29-31. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness: evil, covetousness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Whoa! Disobedience to parents and gossip included with murder? Boasting and insolence included with hating God? That’s a wake-up call we all need.
Another such association literally took my breath away when I discovered it. Look up the Greek word for the Devil--Diabolus, “Slanderer.” That means when I talk about another person, I am becoming exactly what Satan is. Gossip is never inconsequential. Even if it never hurts the one being slandered, a near impossibility, it is certainly affecting the one doing it. You cannot do the works of Satan and come out unscathed.
So be careful when those “little” sins start popping up. Look at the other sins God associates them with. Look who practices them. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is just that—wrong.
My little children let no man lead you astray. He who practices righteousness is righteous. He who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil sinned from the beginning. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, neither he who does not love his brother, 1 John 3:8.10.
Dene Ward
We often dally in sin and think nothing of it. We are as bad as young daredevils who think they will never die. “I’m strong; nothing will happen to me. Besides, God knows my heart, and He knows I am not a bad person.”
Have you ever looked at the lists of sins scattered throughout the New Testament? It always amazes me the failings I find listed side by side, things I would never have put in the same category.
Look at 2 Tim 3:2-4. For people shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Which of us is not sometimes proud, does not sometimes forget to be grateful, or lacks a little self-control in some areas of our lives? Yet the Holy Spirit includes those among the brutal, the ruthless, and the treacherous.
Then there is Romans 1:29-31. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness: evil, covetousness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Whoa! Disobedience to parents and gossip included with murder? Boasting and insolence included with hating God? That’s a wake-up call we all need.
Another such association literally took my breath away when I discovered it. Look up the Greek word for the Devil--Diabolus, “Slanderer.” That means when I talk about another person, I am becoming exactly what Satan is. Gossip is never inconsequential. Even if it never hurts the one being slandered, a near impossibility, it is certainly affecting the one doing it. You cannot do the works of Satan and come out unscathed.
So be careful when those “little” sins start popping up. Look at the other sins God associates them with. Look who practices them. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is just that—wrong.
My little children let no man lead you astray. He who practices righteousness is righteous. He who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil sinned from the beginning. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, neither he who does not love his brother, 1 John 3:8.10.
Dene Ward
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