Luke 17: 1 Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come.
Tough choices are not an option, we don’t get to select them or choose not to have them in our lives. They are a fact. We read here Christ flat out telling us, things will happen that will cause sin. Choices will be presented, opportunities will arise, and we will from time to time stumble, and make the wrong choice. The big piece of this scripture comes at the end….woe to that person through which they come…..Life really comes down to two choices, are you hanging on the cross, or are you driving in the nails? I know in my young life I found that it was A LOT easier to drive nails than it was to hang on the cross….truth be told I never really gave a lot of thought to the hanging on the cross gig. I found an even better way to get things done, I would get other people to do them. See….I knew better, I knew that it was not the best idea, or it might damage, or hurt others, so instead of being that sin, instead of doing the work myself, I got others to do the heavy lifting, In short I brought sin into the lives of others. Looking back, I see that I was a pretty good agent for the devil. Oh it was not something I signed on for, but all too often that is how evil works. As I think of those days, I remember them to be pretty dark, there was some good times in there, but overall it was a season of trial, a season of selfishness. Yeah, I am saddened to say that I have driven a few nails in my life. How often are you driving nails? It is quite easy to do, I promise, How many times have you let others take the fall, all the while thinking well, “there is nothing I can do for them, all I did was bring it up, it is not my fault they did it.” or how often do we turn our heads as we watch our friends walk down the same path they have seen us walk down? We survived, they might not. Just because we did not pull the trigger, does not mean we had no part in the tragedy. What I have found is that the more you choose to live on the cross with Christ, the more opportunities come up to step in and save others from the sin you have already lived. The time spent with the Lord, is time spent building up the lives around us, not tearing them down. Hanging on the cross with Christ allows us to drop all of our anger, our frustration, our envy, and our pride. Once those things are gone, the thought of even allowing others to try and walk your path is unbearable, let alone the thought of helping them down that road. I know I have found, and I am sure you will agree, it takes a big hammer to drive spikes, life become a lot more bearable when you quit dragging that hammer around. We each have a choice to make, where will we take those around us? Will we teach them to hang or to hammer? Sin will come into each of our lives, will we work to beat it back, or will we work to get others on board the sin wagon? I don’t know about you, but my days of driving nails are over, I find myself out of spikes.
God Bless,
Brian Thetford
The New
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