Let the pigs run off the cliff

I was reading that scripture today in Math 8:30-33 where Jesus chased the demons out of the one guy and they went into the pigs, which caused the pigs to run over the cliff. I started thinking about this and my train of thought went in a whole other direction in the end. We entertain sin in our lives and it is causing us to go over the cliff. The reward for sin is death and if we entertain sin, it is death that we will reap. The real question should probably be; “why do we see so many Christians today who are caught up in wrongful things? Why do so many Christians look the same as the world? Why is there no distinction?” We are called to be separate from the world, to be a peculiar people, to be different, but we aren’t. Why? Well, my personal opinion is this. Society has camouflaged sin. Over the years the devil has been very successful in hiding sin. If sin is not recognized, then sin do not have to be dealt with. So let me share with you how he has been doing this. We have been giving sin nice names so that it is not sin anymore. If it is not sin, we do not have to deal with it. We do not have to get rid of it. We do not have to send it over the cliff.

James 1:2 says that we should count it all joy when we fall into trials and tribulations. The beatitudes in Math 5 says that the people of God will be blessed, that means completely happy. There is no reason for any Christian to be unhappy. Luke 6:22-23 says you must leap for joy when things are going bad. Are we? Are we as happy as the Word tells us to be? No we are not. We see people committing suicide because life got to hard for them. We see people drinking pills to deal with depression. If the Word tells us that we should be happy when it is going bad, then it means we should be even happier when things are going well. So we are being disobedient to the Word when we are always moping around and feeling bad, and we call it depression. By calling it depression, we can drink a Prozac instead of repenting. We can get counseling instead of begging for forgiveness. We have an illness instead of sin. So we try to deal with it in a worldly fashion, instead of taking it to a merciful God. Being happy is a command, so it is a choice, not an emotional state. Renew your mind!

Gal 5:23 says that self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit. 2 Tim 1:7 says that God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of self-control. So a lack of self-control is a sin. But we go and call a lack of self-control an addiction. In that way we have a disease. We need help and we go to AA meetings, we use nicotine patches, we go to rehab, we do anything to deal with the “illness”, but we forget that we actually need to deal with the sin.

And so we can go on and on and on. Sin has been camouflaged and we are falling for it. Greed and materialism are called prosperity and is preached in nearly all of our modern day churches. Idol worship is called religion by the Roman Catholics. We watch movies with revenge instead of forgiveness, hate rather than love, we laugh at sinful acts and call it comedy instead of renewing our minds by not filling it with these things. By watching it, laughing at it and calling it entertainment, we condone it and we should not. We are in the world but not of the world. We should be different, not partakers, but shining lights in a dark and desperate world.

What are the sins in your life called? Are they camouflaged? Do you care for the pigs in your life? make a choice today to chase them over the cliff so that God might be honored and glorified through your life. If God is honored here on earth He will draw people to Himself through us. Do you not want to be used by God?