Among these we as well
as you once lived and conducted
ourselves in the passions of our flesh [our behavior governed by our corrupt
and sensual nature], obeying the impulses of the flesh and the thoughts of the
mind [our cravings dictated by our senses and our dark imaginings]. We were
then by nature children of [God’s] wrath and heirs of [His] indignation, like the rest of mankind
(Ephesians 2:3 AMP).
This verse conjures up a very peculiar image in my mind of
my little dog, Ellie. She is a slave to
her nose. She cannot help herself. It is a passion that drives this poor
creature to completely ignore me, even though she is overwhelmingly obedient in
every other instance. I am no
competition for her attention when it comes to the myriad of scents she
discerns on our walking trail. As
disgusting as this may be, her favorite scent happens to be other dog’s piles
of poo. Sometimes the only way I can get
her “off the scent,” is to reattach her leash and yank her away so she can
continue her walk with me.
While I realize that this is a base comparison, I do think
it rightly reflects the way it looks to God when He sees mankind obsessively
obeying their corrupted and sinful nature.
He stands at a distance – already up the road because we fell behind to
sniff – calling our name to go to greater heights and better places, but we
lost in “cravings dictated by our senses.”
You have to admit that whether it is Ellie or us, this is quite a sad
scenario.
It is easy to read this and think, wow, so glad I’m not
there any more, but is that really the case?
I mean I certainly don’t go around sniffing at alcohol, sexual
immorality, or many of the other “scents,” that used to draw me in. Yet, am I
still not sniffing the scent of sin when I take offense at something someone
said or did to me? Is this not the same
as sniffing someone else’s poo? It is
when I am caught up in this ridiculous human condition of being “wronged,” that
I am most thankful for the short leash of God’s Word that can yank me away so
that I can continue my walk with Jesus and not waste time on the excrement of
this world!
Today I choose to come away from an area of my life that has
the disgusting stink of the flesh and obey, instead, the clarion call of God’s
voice to move forward and not linger on the smell of death.
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