Skip to main content

A Morning View From the Patio

I was sitting on the back porch of during a home visit and the family had caught another skunk in their trap. This was the fourth one they had recently captured. The county animal control officer came to remove the skunk. We continued to have a great visit and were in conversation when the officer was walking back to share her report with the skunk properly captured. 
I was amazed that she captured it and there was no hint of the pungent spray a skunk uses for defense. I asked the couple and they said that is because the skunk is dead. It was properly euthanized. I thought the skunk was just being relocated while in reality, it was permanently relocated to death. Being an animal lover I was a little taken back. I know it was a skunk, but couldn't it just be moved? The answer was it could be, but it would continue to be a problem The only way for it to stop was to euthanize the skunk. 
Friends, none of us desire to be sprayed by skunks, but how many of us allow skunks to hang around because we do not want to have them properly removed? If we do not remove the skunk from our lives we eventually will get sprayed. 
We do the same thing with sin in our lives. We allow sin to hang out because it is something I can control. Perhaps it really is not that big of a sin and it has been defeated because I am forgiven by God. We justify our sin and because it is there, eventually we will get sprayed by the pungent spray of the sin in our lives. The only way for sin to go away is for us to let it die and stop allowing ourselves to be tempted by it. We must die to sin and live for Christ.

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.” - Romans 6:1-7

Peace,

PB


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Morning View By the Wood Stove

If you proclaim Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then I must ask you a question. Are you seeking the deepest possible intimate relationship with God that you can ever experience on this earth? Because I know what I am about to say to be absolutely true. If you are not and if you are pursuing anything other than God you will not ever be satisfied and ultimately any other relationship will fail. It does not matter how deeply connected with another person you are without God it will fail. Failure may not mean completely walk away, failure can mean that a relationship will not be what it is intended to be and you settle for it because at least it is there, it's the best I can do, it could be worse and for many other reasons.  We are created to be in relationship with one another. We have many relationships and many depths within those relationships. We have social relationships. We have relationship with many forms of addiction and substitution. We have friends and we have FRIENDS...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Morning View From the Balcony at OBX

So far the weather has not been at its best for us. It is a very cloudy morning. It is rainy with a good chance of clearing up later in the day. But as I sit here this morning I noticed that it does not matter if it is sunny and clear, partly cloudy or even ugly storm cloudy, the sun comes up. We just need to decide how to navigate the day!  Our lives are the same. We need to decide how to navigate each and every day we face. It does not matter what we face, if it is sunny and clear, partly cloudy or even ugly storm cloudy, we still have another day to live and the Son is with us.  I know to some of you this sounds like a no brainer message. Well of course PB, this is the day the Lord has made! Everyday is a great day. To others this is such a difficult message to swallow. It becomes a difficult task to simply tie your shoes. We are all different in our view and response and it is alright to be different.  But please recognize that the sun does come up no matter what. Als...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Morning View By the Wood Stove

I really struggle with what I see and experience in our world today. I say this and am really not sure it is the world as much as it is our country.  I guess it is not so much our country, but with those who proclaim and profess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. I realize in my setting I am making blanket statements, so this is not intended as an attack on anyone, but as a thought provoking moment for everyone.  My heart has been impressed with proclaiming what it means to be a Christian. I grew up with a checklist and if I did not check the proper blanks, I was not a good Christian. I have found out that living that way is full of a bunch of lies and a dangerous understanding of perceived salvation. I believed that there was no way God could ever forgive me for what I have done and who I have been. Again a dangerous lie. I see and read comments people make about issues, government, religion and their faith in Jesus Christ and I cross reference what is said with how Jesus l...
Post a Comment
Read more