Have you ever really listened to one of those commercials about various prescriptions drugs?
“Do not take Wonderdrug if you cannot sit, stand, or lie for longer than an hour, if you are pregnant or might become pregnant, if you have high blood pressure, low blood pressure, heart problems, trouble breathing, or during months beginning with J or ending with R. Wonderdrug has been known to cause dizziness, memory loss, headaches, earaches, toothaches, infectious diseases, cancer of all sorts, liver damage, bleeding ulcers, stroke, seizures, heart attack, acne, warts, and, in rare occasions, death.” In some cases the remedy sounds truly worse than the disease. I must say, though, I was stopped in my tracks the other day when one commercial warned that the drug might cause “increase in gambling." Surely they were just trying to get my attention, right?
Lately, I have had so many chemicals poured into me that I have had to
wonder about the remedy in my case as well. Atropine, Predforte, Phenylephrin, Zymar, Erithromycin, Alphagan, CoSopt, and Travatan, plus four others by three other doctors, all at the same time, a total of about 60 doses a day at one point. And then there were the accompanying side effects: light sensitivity, erratic heartbeat, dry mouth, dizziness, loss of taste, not to mention the eating away of the top layer of my eyeball (epithiliopathy) not once, but twice since then, after it had healed! Believe it not, stopping the medication would have been worse, though sometimes I was strongly tempted to do so.
Pouring chemicals into your body is not good. If your body is working correctly, don’t.
It is no different with sin. Sin may be attractive. It may look good, but you will sooner or later suffer the side effects: guilt, shame, and spiritual death.
As David wrote, For my iniquities have gone over my head; as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness, Psa 38:4,5.
Righteousness, on the other hand, offers no painful side effects to the
sin-sick soul. Instead we receive peace, boldness, strength, hope, joy, and life. These are not unnatural to the soul; unlike lives of sin, this is the way God intended us to live from the beginning.
Don’t be fooled by the labels the world attaches to sin, labels like “fun,” “security,” and “love.” Jesus did not call Satan a liar without cause. Instead, live joyfully, at peace with God, with all the guilt and shame removed from your shoulders. That is what life in Christ is all about.
Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Rom 5:1,2
Dene Ward
“Do not take Wonderdrug if you cannot sit, stand, or lie for longer than an hour, if you are pregnant or might become pregnant, if you have high blood pressure, low blood pressure, heart problems, trouble breathing, or during months beginning with J or ending with R. Wonderdrug has been known to cause dizziness, memory loss, headaches, earaches, toothaches, infectious diseases, cancer of all sorts, liver damage, bleeding ulcers, stroke, seizures, heart attack, acne, warts, and, in rare occasions, death.” In some cases the remedy sounds truly worse than the disease. I must say, though, I was stopped in my tracks the other day when one commercial warned that the drug might cause “increase in gambling." Surely they were just trying to get my attention, right?
Lately, I have had so many chemicals poured into me that I have had to
wonder about the remedy in my case as well. Atropine, Predforte, Phenylephrin, Zymar, Erithromycin, Alphagan, CoSopt, and Travatan, plus four others by three other doctors, all at the same time, a total of about 60 doses a day at one point. And then there were the accompanying side effects: light sensitivity, erratic heartbeat, dry mouth, dizziness, loss of taste, not to mention the eating away of the top layer of my eyeball (epithiliopathy) not once, but twice since then, after it had healed! Believe it not, stopping the medication would have been worse, though sometimes I was strongly tempted to do so.
Pouring chemicals into your body is not good. If your body is working correctly, don’t.
It is no different with sin. Sin may be attractive. It may look good, but you will sooner or later suffer the side effects: guilt, shame, and spiritual death.
As David wrote, For my iniquities have gone over my head; as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness, Psa 38:4,5.
Righteousness, on the other hand, offers no painful side effects to the
sin-sick soul. Instead we receive peace, boldness, strength, hope, joy, and life. These are not unnatural to the soul; unlike lives of sin, this is the way God intended us to live from the beginning.
Don’t be fooled by the labels the world attaches to sin, labels like “fun,” “security,” and “love.” Jesus did not call Satan a liar without cause. Instead, live joyfully, at peace with God, with all the guilt and shame removed from your shoulders. That is what life in Christ is all about.
Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Rom 5:1,2
Dene Ward
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