This past Sunday I was talking with children about what we put into our bodies. I gave them a choice between a Swiss cake roll and an apple. I compared this to what we put into our hearts and minds. I overstated my case so there would be a Swiss cake roll left for me.
The choice between a Swiss cake roll and an apple seems obvious when we read the ingredients. If we care for our bodies at all (and I'm speaking about a regular basis kind of thing here) we will choose the apple.
But shouldn't it be the same in a spiritual sense? If we look at what we put into our hearts and minds and see the affect it has in us, our decisions would be made much easier. That is, if we could see God face to face, and see what sin looked like in His eyes, it should make enough of an impact on us that we would choose not to sin.
In my recent daily Bible readings, I'm getting to the end of the giving of the Law. As long as some parts are, there have been sections that have really made me think. There are pages of curses spelled out of what will happen when they reject God and serve idols. But somehow it still happened. They rejected God for the equivalent of a Swiss cake roll.
Moses made it abundantly clear what the consequences of sin would be. How did they still choose against God? How do we?
It's funny in that not-funny kind of way how things happen in our spiritual lives that we wouldn't allow in other areas of our lives. We know 2+2=4 and we wouldn't give the wrong answer just to see if we'll get caught. But moral choices come along, with math just as simple, and we give all sorts of wrong answers.
This has to change because we do not serve a Swiss Cake Roll God, one who is ambiguous about our choices and their consequences. Follow God's plan and He "will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands" (Deuteronomy 28:12).
The choice between a Swiss cake roll and an apple seems obvious when we read the ingredients. If we care for our bodies at all (and I'm speaking about a regular basis kind of thing here) we will choose the apple.
But shouldn't it be the same in a spiritual sense? If we look at what we put into our hearts and minds and see the affect it has in us, our decisions would be made much easier. That is, if we could see God face to face, and see what sin looked like in His eyes, it should make enough of an impact on us that we would choose not to sin.
In my recent daily Bible readings, I'm getting to the end of the giving of the Law. As long as some parts are, there have been sections that have really made me think. There are pages of curses spelled out of what will happen when they reject God and serve idols. But somehow it still happened. They rejected God for the equivalent of a Swiss cake roll.
Moses made it abundantly clear what the consequences of sin would be. How did they still choose against God? How do we?
It's funny in that not-funny kind of way how things happen in our spiritual lives that we wouldn't allow in other areas of our lives. We know 2+2=4 and we wouldn't give the wrong answer just to see if we'll get caught. But moral choices come along, with math just as simple, and we give all sorts of wrong answers.
This has to change because we do not serve a Swiss Cake Roll God, one who is ambiguous about our choices and their consequences. Follow God's plan and He "will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands" (Deuteronomy 28:12).
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