February 22, 2012
How Does It Feel
Where I sit during worship service is one of the first places to get
served communion. Because serving the congregation takes a little bit of time,
I’m normally finished with my self-examination and prayers before everyone else
has even been served. Usually I just sit quietly until the next segment of the
worship service begins. However this last Sunday I really wanted to whisper in
my neighbor’s ear…and my topic had nothing to do with worship. I can stop
myself from doing something because I know it’s not the time or the place, but
at this moment it came to me, ‘Just
exactly how do you think you are going to feel after you whisper to you
neighbor?’ Not that this situation was a sin, but it did cause me to pause.
When I’m on the verge of sinning, maybe it should be crossing my mind how I
might feel if I were to go ahead and sin. “What
benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those
things result in death!” (Ro 6:21 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----So, did you whisper in your neighbor’s ear? And had you done so, would you have died? Would your death have been for naught? For maybe your neighbor was quicker of mind, finishing her self-examination and prayers before you. Maybe she sat bored and in need of some blip of jolly from a whispered nothing. Sin is distinctly defined by God’s mind. But is it by ours?
-----Well, Paul figures that since you had not the faith to whisper at that moment, whispering would have be a sin even if God knew it was a quite opportune moment for a lighthearted interjection. Then what would have died if you had thus sinned? Not you, of course, silly. The bit of your faith that would have grown into that place you otherwise would have filled with an act of disregard towards faith would have died. Even though it may get a chance to grow in the moment of a later time, the lack of its growth here and all the other growth it might have inspired will not be. It is dead.
-----But enough of the heavy! Thank God for mercy and other times, and His truth that buzzes around all the stuff of our lives like little gnats. They seem inconsequential. They certainly seem pesky (Don’t whisper! Don’t whisper! Don’t whisper!) But if we are sensitive and humble enough to attend them, all the little things they lead us to do make more life.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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