Helping You Honor and Glorify God in All You Think, Do, Say, and Feel

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Venom or Victory?



Posted: June 20, 2009


I took the picture above when I was on a fishing trip in my Kayak. I had been in my Yak for a while and needed to stretch my legs, so I went ashore and as I was exploring I found this little guy. Little guy with big fangs!
I love snakes. They fascinate me. I love the scales and tough skin God designed them with, their “cat” eyes they have when they are the poisonous type, and the way they freakishly smell your presence with their tongue; like this here Copperhead. I just love admiring their beauty - God’s great design!
As a 11 year old kid I would catch snakes in the wild, teach/train them not to bite, and then sell them to pet shops for a little spending money in the summer, or anytime I could catch em :0)
So for most of my life I’ve loved snakes - unless they’re poisonous. Therefore, the Copperhead above was no friend - and I kill ALL snakes that aren’t my friend. Even though it may be scary sometimes, I still kill them because I don’t want them to bite, infect or kill another human - or me for that matter. 
PETA would not have liked the result of my encounter with this Copperhead... but that’s o.k... I’m not a PETA fan :0) but I also don’t like anything to suffer... so, I sent him to snake heaven quickly, as you see below.
It reminds me a lot of the sin in our lives. 
As we read the Scriptures and God reveals the sin
in our hearts, He intends for us to confess it,
repent of it, to forsake it, to kill it!
But many times we want it for a pet, we like the 
way it makes us feel, we say 
“It’s no big deal if I have this in my life, 
besides, I’m not hurting anyone...”
When I saw this Copperhead I intended to kill it
because it is a very dangerous snake. If it didn’t kill
someone that it bit, it would surly cause them a lot
of pain; I know because Pastor Kevin has lived through that himself. (Note to self... always wear shoes, not sandals, when feeding the pigs; thanks for the lesson brother ;o)
So, I asked myself why I don’t treat sin the same way I do poisonous snakes. 
My answer?  Because I enjoy the poison of sin running through my veins. It (sin) feels good, but only for a little while - then it’s poison spreads and starts to visibly take its toll - ending in imminent death.  
Before you write me off - can I tell you that you’re the same? You see, we sin because we want to. We sin and we know it’s going to destroy us, we sin and we know it’s going to cause us pain, we sin and we know it’s going to hurt others... yet we still sin.
So, how do we “kill it”? How do we escape the venom and have victory instead?
Through loving Christ! 
Our love for God must be so great, we must thirst to please Him so much, that we can cry out like king David and say Psalm 63:3 “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”
Because glorifying Him is better than anything we could ever attain! That everything else is LOSS compared to knowing Jesus!
Why don’t we choose to do this more often? I believe it’s because we don’t love Him enough. Jesus said in John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.”
If we truly love Jesus enough we would strive to obey Him, to honor Him, to pursue Him as “water in a dry and weary land”... 
I would ask that you not let sin rule in you body - because it’s poison, it’s death, it will kill you! And, if you are a Christian, you’re already dead to it! But you will always fight sin as long as you’re on earth. 
So do that - FIGHT IT, KILL IT, DON’T BE IT’S FRIEND; IT WILL BITE YOU AND FILL YOU WITH ITS POISON! 
DON’T LET IT BITE AND CONTROL YOU - KILL IT.
Meditate on this passage, as I have today, I pray it helps you as it is helping me.
Romans 6:12-14
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
PT

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