Don't Flirt With Sin

IF YOUR RIGHT EYE CAUSES YOU TO SIN, GOUGE IT OUT AND THROW IT AWAY. Matthew 5.29.

Nobody takes sin seriously today, not even we Christians! The problem is with our society. It has allowed the greedy entrepreneurs to churn out all kinds of evil and immorality for the consumption of the gullible public. They dish out filth and immorality in various forms to the innocent audience, like you and I and our children, in the name of news and entertainment. Our consciences are seared and numbed. We learn to laugh at them because they have made sin a laughing matter for all. We tolerate those degrading immoral and crimes scenes, allowing them into our homes and worse still, our minds! Yet, the other day I was surprised by the reaction of our oldest grandson, a teenager, who quickly clicked his remote and changed the channel because it was showing an explicit sex scene! He had more sense than the producers and even we parents!

Slowly, you begin to think that after all, ‘what is seen by everyone everyday cannot be so wrong!' It cannot be as bad as the Bible says! You are assuming that God doesn’t care if' we watch and relish immorality in words and actions! Hence, slowly, you begin to flirt with those sins, first in sight and in thought! Soon you too begin to indulge in 'innocent' sins which have become part of our everyday life. You excuse yourself. They lead you on to blatant sins! You do not confess your sins any more. You have conceded in your mind that they are not sins. You continue indulging in those sins with no guilty conscience. Unless you go back to the Bible and find out how serious God is about sin, you will get deeper and deeper into sin.

Let us take a look at two familiar situations we face everyday: 1) “I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. ..anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell” (v.22). 2) "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell" (v.27-29).

Sin is so serious that Jesus said that it is better to cut off a part of your body rather than commit a sin which will take you to hell! Sin is so dangerous that Jesus equated anger with murder and looking with lust to adultery! All sins will become habits. Let us begin to call sin, SIN. Let us separate ourselves from today’s flirting with SIN, whether by watching it on TV and relishing or laughing at it! God save us from sitting and watching it with our little children, exposing them to adult vulgarity! Let us stop considering the SIN of anger, malice, envy, hatred and hurting others etc. as ‘small sins’ and indulge in them.

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, help me to see ALL SIN so grave as to take me to hell. If it brought death to You, it will bring death to me too. Since You have died for my sin, help me to die to my sin too. Let me not consider any sin ‘small’ and stop flirting with it! Amen.