No one is born with the hardwired thought of growing up to
be an embezzler, serial killer, bank robber or abuser. You can fill in the
blank with any number of sins and negative attributes; it’s all the same. These
propensities come from seed sown by the enemy, watered by desires of the flesh,
fertilized by moral decay and finally come to fruition and harvested.
Temptations come in all shapes and sizes. What tempts one
person may not affect the next. For instance, I have never been tempted to break
in to a house and take what I wanted. I think there is a difference between a
parent taking food to feed their family and the greed-driven people that steal
just because they can. In God’s eyes, both are sins. One may be motivated by a
passionate need to provide food for their babies and the other by cold-blooded arrogance
and greed. It is the filter of human emotion that makes the difference to the people
looking at it. God sees sin in black and white, it is either a sin or it is
not. We see it in multiple shades of color based on our perception,
circumstances and human emotion.
One may not find it a sin, crime or even harmful to take
supplies from their employer, yet another may find that to be scandalous and
unacceptable. I, personally, have a problem with people munching their way
through the produce department …sampling as they go…others see no problem with
taking some grapes, or strawberries or whatever. You never really see people
sampling onions, though, do you?
My point is, people are drawn to the things that appeal to
them, catches their attention, things they desire…be it stolen money or stolen
grapes, sitting in a strip club or lusting after the woman in a Victoria’s
Secret commercial, cursing the driver that just cut you off on the highway or
verbally beating up your child, spending money on beer or new shoes when you
can’t pay your bills. Shades of sin?
Our flesh is powerful, influential and rarely subtle; our
freewill, too, is powerful and dangerous to our spiritual health when given
free reign. When the flesh and freewill are steering our lives, we are headed
for trouble!
Have you noticed how quickly people stand to be judge and
jury on other’s offenses but use broad strokes of whitewash on their own? Shades
of sin strikes again. Saying something hurtful isn’t less hurtful just because you
laugh at the end of the sentence and claim to be ‘joking.’ Sharing someone’s private
information isn’t less a harmful betrayal because you trusted the person you
shared with and meant well. Shades of sin? When ‘sharing’ is the disguise for
gossip, it is still gossip dressed up, hoping to look prettier so we feel
better about ourselves. We’ve all ‘been there and done that.’
In our place in space of the Big Picture, we’ve watched
morals erode, prayers legislated and all kinds of bad behaviors taken up as
civic causes. We are going about life in living color but viewing ourselves
through shades of sin. Sad thing is we are passing it on to our children. We
are teaching them they are exempt from accountability. I’ve heard three
different moms recently say their child forgot their homework and they were making
a trip to school. Doesn’t sound too harmful, does it? The underlying message is
reinforcing the child didn’t have to take responsibility for their negligence
or deal with the consequences. We are programming it right into the next
generation as a given. Is it any wonder we have so many people thinking they are
exempt from accountability?
May you always know the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
No comments:
Post a Comment