Sin and Brownies

Let's play a little word association game. 

I say red…

You say wagon, barn, riding hood.

I say Mac…

You say apple.

I say existentialism…

You say elitist hipster, Dostoyevsky, etc.

I say sinful…

You say decadent brownies, bubble baths, heathens.

Sin is not something we talk about much, and in the course of the evolution of language, it's lost a little of its punch.  It has come to mean something overly luxurious, rich, decadent, sexy, said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.  You might hear a pastor talk about it once in a while as the "bad stuff we do", but you're more likely to hear Betty Crocker use it to describe her Ultimate Fudge Brownies.  (As if God wouldn't approve of brownies that good.. But that's another post.)

UM HELLO!?

No.  Sin is not really great dessert.  Sin is at the root of every evil, death, hurt, loss and pain.  It is not your occasional moral misstep.  It is an acid trying to eat your face off and wreck your life.  Sin in the beginning (in that garden) is the reason people die at all.  It is the reason we dread going to work on Mondays.  It is the reason kids bully each other, and adults get sucked into climbing the status ladder.  It is the source of people abusing people and substances and power. 

Sin should find no safe harbor with you, Christian.  There should be no resting place, safe space, relational comfort for sin in you.  It's the weapon the evil one uses to lull you away from Jesus, your shepherd.  As soon as we start treating sin like little unavoidable mistakes and a level of decadence, we deny the danger it poses and the damage it causes. 

Sin has consequences.  It wreaks havoc.  It's at the heart of every war that's ever been fought, in a kitchen or on a battlefield.  It fires missiles in the shape of words never meant to be spoken.  It sparks fear and feeds the flame.  It would have your life in flaming shambles.

Stop snoozing, Christian (including Little Miss Sunshine).  People don't sleep on railroad tracks.  They don't toss around canisters of anthrax.  They don't go sky diving over the middle of the ocean.  That would be imbecilic.  Stupid.  Dangerous.  Don't play with sin.  It bites.  Hard.  Don't confuse your enemies for neutral parties.  Sin wants you miserable, broken, dead. 

There is only one anecdote.  It's not moral muscle or spiritual savvy.  It's Jesus.  In Him is life, and that to the full.  There's no detoxing yourself of sin, no trying to do better, no 12 step plan to kick the habit.  There is only Jesus.  Only He can smash the evil in you.  Only He can pull off the rescue.  Only He loved you enough to try. 

So quit treating that rescue like it wasn't necessary, like it was no big deal.  Stop acting like Jesus saved you from a brownie instead of the full force of God's wrath directed at the sin in you. 

Little Miss Sunshine