sin

Exodus 30, Ecclesiastes 6, Luke 10

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Read Exodus 30, Ecclesiastes 6, and Luke 10.

This devotional is about Ecclesiastes 6.

This lifetime on earth offers us some incredible experiences. If life goes well, a person will be born into a loving family, have everything he or she needs to live, get an education, find a mate who will open a new dimension of love, have children who will open yet another dimension of love, possibly find a fulfilling career or, at the very least, one that will provide for a stable family life.

In addition to these blessings, many people will find friends to share experiences with, will enjoy watching many beautiful sunrises and sunsets, will hear music that enthralls them, will know what it feels like to win a tough game against a really good opponent, will taste food that they will never forget, and travel to places which will always be special in their memories.

That’s if all goes well….

However, it doesn’t always work that way, does it? Some people are born blind and will never see that beautiful sunset. Some are born to broken homes or have parents who will abuse them. Some grow up in excruciating poverty. Some will never learn to read. Some will never know what it feels like to be in love. Some will die in a tragic accident or through some kind of physical illness and will never live to see their kids grow up. Some people will experience a heartbreaking combination of these events; they will wonder why life has been so cruel to them.

Then there are others who experience success in life but can never enjoy the rewards of that success. That seems to be who Solomon has in mind here in Ecclesiastes 6:1-2. They succeed at life (“they lack nothing their hearts desire”) but die young before they can enjoy their success or they miss out in some other way. In the words of verse 2c: “….God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them, and strangers enjoy them instead.”

In verses 3-6 Solomon says that someone who never made it out of the womb alive is better than the person who attained what they want in life but never could enjoy the results. This is just one of Solomon’s many laments in this book—a still frame in an unhappy video about the problems of life.

These problems are caused by the curse that comes from sin. Whether a person suffers from poverty, or lives life alone and unloved, or has a broken body, or dies young, or is wealthy but unhealthy, nobody gets everything out of life that life could potentially offer to us all. The problem is not that God creates a cruel world that promises us pleasure but sticks us with pain instead. The problem is that the beautiful world that God created has been broken by sin. Because humanity defied God’s instruction, we all find heartache and sorrow and pain and lack of fulfillment in this life to some degree or others. Some of us feel it so intensely that the only word that can describe life is “unfair.”

This reality is immune to pious platitudes, quick fixes, or positive thinking. Even when someone’s life goes spectacularly well, there are always regrets, disappointments, grief, and sorrow. Ecclesiastes is a long meditation on the frustrating enigmas of life. Instead of telling us that “it’ll be OK eventually,” he will later tell us just to fear God, obey his word, and enjoy what we can. It’s good advice and we’d all do well to obey it.

But we can’t even do that; the capacity to just “fear God and obey his word” was lost by humanity on the same day we lost paradise.

This is why Christ gives us such hope. Although he has not chosen, yet, to fix this broken and painful reality, he has shown us his love and promised us a better life—eternal life, if we trust him and follow him no matter what. If you’re discouraged today by circumstances around you, remember that your frustration is the symptom of a world that is suffering under sin and its consequences. Instead of bemoaning what is lost, look to Christ in faith. In him is the promise of life in his kingdom that will be perfection itself and will never end.

Exodus 13, Job 31, Proverbs 6:20-35

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Read Exodus 13, Job 31, and Proverbs 6:20-35.

This devotional is about Proverbs 6:20-35.

Proverbs 5 was devoted entirely to warning us against the sin of adultery. Here in 6:20-35, Solomon revisited that subject.

In Proverbs 5:16-22 Solomon advised us to protect against adultery by prioritizing and enjoying sex within your marriage. That instruction came at the end of the teaching on adultery.

Here in Proverbs 6:20-24 his recommendation for avoiding adultery comes at the beginning of the section, not the end as in chapter 5. In chapter 5, Solomon recommended an amorous marriage as the antidote to adultery. Here in chapter 6, as we’ll see in a moment, Solomon has another defense in mind against adultery. If we read Proverbs 5:16-22 and 6:20-35 together, we learn that we should use multiple layers of protection against this sin. One layer is a mind that is devoted to truth and prepares for the temptation of adultery (6:20-24). The other layer is a strong relationship with your spouse (5:16-22).

Let’s focus on the layer described here in 6:20-24. Verse 24 says that it is the teaching of godly parents (v. 20) that will keep “you from your neighbor’s wife.” How does that work exactly? Verses 25-29 tell us.

All temptations to sin consist of lies. Just as Satan promised Eve that disobeying God’s commands would liberate them to become “like God, knowing good and evil,” all temptations promise some kind of benefit with no cost. Adultery, of course, promises thrills and pleasure. If you feel yourself being attracted to someone else who is not your wife, temptation promises that the beauty of that person will be yours to enjoy (v. 25) if you begin a relationship with her.

But sin always hides the cost and Solomon’s teaching to his son in this passage is to consider the high cost of adultery (vv. 26-33). Sex with a prostitute is sinful but sex with another man’s wife is a much costlier sin (v. 26). It will bring punishment into your life (v. 29) just as surely as coals will burn you (vv. 27-28). If you learn this well when you are young, you will understand the real cost of adultery and see through the lies that temptation tells you.

Adultery is so costly because of the social shame after the sin is exposed that adulterers bear. Some sins make sense to us such as stealing to avoid starvation (v. 30). Yet even that sin exacts a cost when the shoplifter is caught (v. 31). Our hearts go out to a starving man who steals because he is just trying to stay alive (v. 30) so when his fine for stealing is paid, that is the end of the matter (v. 31). Adultery is not disposed of so easily. Verse 33b says, “…his shame will never be wiped away.” In other words, if you get caught committing adultery, that is going to stick with you and become a permanent part of your story. At the very least, the spouse of the person you commit adultery with will not forget (vv. 34-35). In his quest to get justice, he will not hide what you did but will spread the word so that the maximum number of people possible hear about it.

In the moments of temptation, these truths can help you find your way out of temptation without sinning. If you can remember that the promises adultery makes to you will prove to be false, it will be easier to say no when the temptation comes your way.

So, determine now to live a pure life and to remind yourself that the high cost of sin far outweighs the temporary pleasures the sin will offer you. This is the wise way to live–the pure way. May God give us grace to trust him and obey his word if any of us face this temptation in our lives.

Exodus 10, Job 28, James 1

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Read Exodus 10, Job 28, James 1.

This devotional is about James 1.

The core problem when we are tempted to sin is about choosing what is good. Sin offers us good things; not things that are morally good but things that feel good.

  • Cheating on an exam feels good; you get a good grade without working for it and get the feeling of outwitting your clueless teacher.
  • Lying when you are late to work or when you get caught doing something wrong feels good because it allows you to avoid accountability for what you did.
  • Stealing something feels good because you get the value without having to work or sacrifice for it.
  • Slandering someone you don’t like feels good because it gives you a chance to spill all the negative thoughts and feelings you have toward that person.

This is what temptation offers to us. It offers us immediate pleasure or immediate relief from pain. It tells us that sinning will be good. It promises that we’ll be better off taking a moral shortcut than doing the right thing which is often hard to do.

After James explains the process of temptation in James 1:13-15, he urges us not to take the bait offered by temptation. Temptation offers good feelings, but that is a trick. That’s why James says in verse 16, “Don’t be deceived.” When you are tempted to sin, remember that the temptation is a trick, it is a scam. Don’t fall for it.

Instead, according to verse 17, we must remember in temptation that God is the source of all good things–real good things. Verse 17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” The best things in life are gifts from God and they never, ever come through sinning. So, when we are tempted, James wants us to remind ourselves to trust God and follow his ways, because he is always good. Our salvation is one early evidence of God’s goodness (v. 18).

Each of us will encounter some kind of temptation today. When it happens, remember this: sin is a trick, a shortcut that promises pleasure but never delivers the good thing it offers without a severe, hidden price. Since we know how good God is because of our salvation, we must trust that obedience to his word in temptation will lead us to better outcomes than the scammy shortcuts of sin.

Genesis 4, Ezra 4, Matthew 4

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Read Genesis 4, Ezra 4, and Matthew 4. This devotional is about Matthew 4, especially verses 1-11.

Having been identified by God as His Son in Matthew 3:17, Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert. The purpose of this trip was, according to verse 1, “to be tempted by the devil.”

Apparently the devil was patient and waited until Jesus was physically depleted from having fasted for 40 days & nights (v. 2). Because Christ did not have a sin nature to appeal to, Satan waited until Jesus was starving, then tempted him to use his power as God to create food for himself from the abundant stones that lay around them (v. 3).

It is not immediately obvious that what Satan was tempting Christ to do was sinful. Didn’t Christ create all things? Aren’t all things created by him and for him (Col 1:16)?

Yes! So, would it be wicked for the son of God to sustain his human life by adapting what he created to serve him in his moment of physical need?

The answer is that it would not be a sin for Christ to change the stones into bread. He did miracles like this to feed others without being guilty of sin. No, it was not sinful for Christ to use his divine power to meet human needs.

But it would have been sinful for him to do for himself what other humans could not do for themselves. People die of starvation routinely somewhere in the world. It is part of the human condition. But, because it is part of the human condition, Christ, who was fully human, had to be subject to that aspect of the human condition, too.

In other words, it would be inappropriate and selfish for him to satisfy his human desires just because he had the divine power to do so. Because human salvation was dependent on Jesus living a fully human life, it would be wrong for him to make living as a human easier on himself by using his divine power to cheat.

Although you and I don’t have the power to satisfy our desires supernaturally, we do understand the temptation to live outside of the Father’s will. Many sins stem from a desire to exempt ourselves from the struggles of the human condition:

  • Those who steal are looking for an exemption from the command to work for a living.
  • Those who commit adultery are looking for an exemption from the marriage covenant they made before God.
  • Those who lie are looking to evade accountability about something or to make themselves look better than they really are.
In what ways are you tempted to sin and justify it by the extraordinary circumstances you are in? Remember that Christ has felt the pull of that temptation, too, so look to him and ask him for grace to do what you know is right. Then, do what is right because you trust God’s word more than your human desires (v. 4).

Why Bad Ideas Resonate With You

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Tuning fork in sound therapy
Tuning fork in sound therapy

Why do bad ideas seems so attractive to us? Why do sinful choices seem so attractive in the moment of temptation?

The answer: You are a sinner. Therefore, you personal character is warped in a sinful direction. The external temptation to sin strikes a resonant chord with your soul. It gives you a chance to do something you want to do already.

All of this is taught in James 1:14-15. Verse 14 says, “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.” Verse 15 says that sin is a process but, one the process starts, it has an inevitability about it.

Sin is like pregnancy, according to verse 15. It only takes a moment and just a little bit of sperm to start the process. But once sperm & egg unite, a chain of events unfolds that takes unusual invention to stop.

One aspect of growing in Christ is reducing the sin in your life. The Bible talks about putting sin to death (Rom 8:13, Col 3:5). But in James 1, it also talks about not letting sin deceive you and conceive in you in the first place.

The deceptive power of sin is a lie. The resonates with you because you are a sinner but, as a lie, it promises pleasure, or power without telling you the cost. James 1:16 says, “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.” The next few verses tell us that God is the source of good promises that pay off well, not sin.

To grow in your faith and to become holy like God is, you must believe God’s promises in the moment of temptation. You have to choose against your sin nature and its urging within you to believe the lies of temptation.

In other words, you have to put your faith in the promises of God’s word instead of the deceptive promises of sin.

Judges 20, Ezekiel 9, Acts 2

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Read Judges 20, Ezekiel 9, and Acts 2 today.

This devotional is about Judges 20.

At the end of yesterday’s reading in Judges 19, each tribe in Israel received a piece of the dead body of a woman. Someone got her severed head, another received her right hand, and so on. Gross.

The people were naturally aghast at such a ghastly thing, so in today’s reading from Judges 20, they responded. Nothing unifies a nation like a dismembered body, I guess, so in verse 1 we read that “all Israel… came together as one… in Mizpah.”

One phrase that I omitted from that quotation was “before the Lord,” which describes a seriousness about the situation and a rare understanding from Israel’s leaders that their decisions were just a spiritually important as they were civilly important. The first part of chapter 20 described an investigation. The people of Israel asked the man with the complaint, the woman’s “husband” to describe his grievance (v. 3). The tribe of Benjamin were aware of the ongoing trial, probably because they, too, had received one of the woman’s body parts. After listening to the man’s description of events in verses 4-6 and hearing the man call for a decision (v. 7), the leaders decide to prepare for a civil war against the entire tribe of Benjamin (vv. 8-11). While they prepared, they also sent messengers “throughout the tribe of Benjamin” (v. 12), asking the tribe of Benjamin to do justice and hand over the culprits who sinned against the Levite and his concubine.

There are perplexing aspects to this story. The most difficult one for me is why the Israelites suffered two defeats to the Benjaminites. The defeats happened despite the fact that Israel’s cause was just and they had submitted to the Lord’s will the decision to attack in both cases (vv. 17-18, 23). Maybe the Lord wanted to humble the Israelites and increase their sense of dependence on him (see vv. 26-28). I wish the Lord had given us more insight on this.

What I do know is that Benjamin paid a heavy price for refusing to deal justly with the men who brutally treated one of their sister Israelites. If they had handled the Levite’s case justly, this loss of life could have been completely avoided. If they had simply handed over, when confronted by Israel, the perpetrators (v. 12), they could have avoided this civil war. Their stubbornness, their loyalty to blood over the just application of God’s law, caused much greater turmoil for the whole nation than was necessary.

And then I think about how easy it is for us for us to excuse or defend our own sin or the sins of those we like and how hard it is for us to do the right thing when we are confronted and given the opportunity to turn and do the right thing. Although the consequences, thankfully, of our sins are not this sweeping and brutal, a passage like this reminds us how damaging sin and defensiveness about it, can be. If we think about this in terms of our own lives, hopefully we can be wise by learning from this brutal story.