CHAPTER SEVEN – Sin Trap

Why do you think some people break the law?  Murderers and robbers and corrupt politicians obviously have some sort of motivation for what they do.  Do you think it’s because they don’t think there will be any repercussions for their actions?  Or maybe they think the payoffs will outweigh the damage done.  Or maybe they’re ultimately just not that smart.

Another good question to ask might be, why do some people obey the law?  Why would somebody live a peaceful moral life?  These days it seems like the law keepers take more of a beating from society than the law breakers.  Do you ever wonder why that is?

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You are what you eat.  I think it’s crazy how many different kinds of diet plans there are.  People will do some crazy things and spend some crazy money to lose weight and get in shape, when all they really have to do is eat less and be active more.  Every ounce of fat on your body, got there through your mouth.  But so many of us don’t want our stomachs and tongues to go without.  We keep hoping the diet pills and foods that replace fat with corn syrup will somehow magically turn us into the people we see in the magazines who starve themselves and take steroids.   And we do that in spite of the glaring common sense that simply cutting back on portions and going for a walk instead of watching TV will make more real impact than all the fads put together.

There’s another common sense thing lots of people ignore and that’s the requirement of God that we live holy lives by his power.  We are called by God to turn away from selfish desires and not be controlled by a hunger for immorality.  We are to be controlled by God’s Spirit and live the way he commands.  Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross as an atonement for our old, rotten, sinful choices.  But his grace is not just a technicality.  His gruesome death ought to be a terrible reminder of how painful and destructive your sin was so that you stop doing it and walk away from your old life and live as a new creation.  Christians aren’t called saints in the Bible just for fun.  We get that title for living righteous lives by the power of God’s Spirit.

So…whichever way you are living reveals what you truly believe.  You can make any claim you want about what you believe or don’t believe, but your real life choices you make (including the choices you make behind closed doors and in your own mind) expose the truth of what you have faith in.  If your faith is in the world, you will live life the way the world tells you to.  But if your faith is in God, you will actually do what he tells you and live life his way.  And if you say one thing and do another, you’re simply a hypocrite.

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There are people who think they can talk to the dead.  There are people who think they can leave their bodies and enter the spirit world on demand.  There are people who think they can access spirits of various kinds.  Some people even think they can control these spirits.  Just about everybody I can think of—even some atheists—want to know more about the spiritual side of life.  So what does it mean to have a spirit, to live by the spirit, to be spiritual?

It’s probably smart for all Christians to understand, because it’s how we are called to live.  After all, God himself is spirit…

John 4:24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

And you and I, underneath this coating of skin and bones, we are spirit.

Romans 8:16 For his Holy Spirit speaks to our spirit and tells us that we are God’s children.

What a wild thought!  Have you ever really stopped to consider what that means?  That you have a spirit—that you ultimately are spirit.

I know it’s much easier to think of things in their physical sense.  That’s what we’re used to.  We breathe and walk and bleed when we are cut.  Our life is sustained by food and drink.  We exercise for better health.  We wear coats when we’re cold and shorts when it’s hot out.  We can get sick and worn out.  Understanding things as physical is second nature to us…or maybe it feels more like first nature to you.

But the truth is that the spiritual part of us is in a sense far more real than the physical.  Our physical bodies wear out over time.  They can develop sicknesses and sore spots.  They get old and eventually die.  After that they go right back to dust.  In fact, the bodies that we’re used to have to die for us to continue.  Like a seed that goes into the ground, we have to shed our outer shell in order to continue as spirit.

Now the average person might last a good 70 or 80 years these days.  And to you and I that can seem like a good long time.

But our spirits last a whole lot longer than that.  It might be difficult to comprehend, but even if we live well over 100 years, the time that our spirit goes on and on makes this physical life seem like the tiniest speck of insignificance.

1 Cor. 15:45-54 The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit.  What came first was the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later.  Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven.  Every human being has an earthly body just like Adam’s, but our heavenly bodies will be just like Christ’s.  Just as we are now like Adam, the man of the earth, so we will someday be like Christ, the man from heaven.

What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These perishable bodies of ours are not able to live forever.

But let me tell you a wonderful secret God has revealed to us. Not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, the Christians who have died will be raised with transformed bodies. And then we who are living will be transformed so that we will never die.  For our perishable earthly bodies must be transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die.

When this happens—when our perishable earthly bodies have been transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die—then at last the Scriptures will come true: “Death is swallowed up in victory.

So we can grasp the basics of this concept.  It’s easy to say sure I’m a spirit.  But how do you really relate to that idea—that you exist in a realm of nonphysical.  Because when it comes down to it, it can be an amazing thing to really try to grasp.

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Have you ever stopped to think about what it must have been like when God created people?  I picture Creation as a kind of artistic event—where God stands back looking at a blank canvas and formulates his ideas and then says “Let there be…” like an artist brushing strokes of color to create the image held in his mind.  Then he steps back and says “It’s good.” and keeps adding more and more to the picture.  But when he had finished everything else and was ready to make people he became the sculptor.  It’s like he got down on his hands and knees and picked up the dirt on the ground and shaped it into a man.  This part of his creation he wanted to do more than just speak into existence.  He wanted to mold Adam with his own hands and then breathe life into him.

And it seems that the farther we drift from God (as individuals and a culture) the less we care about Human life.  It tends to become less important to us.  A thief can wind up serving more time in jail than a murderer.  Old people, unborn children, and the disabled are seen as less valuable.  And we suffer as a people because of it.  Perhaps it’s time to take a fresh look at what it means to be a human being with the breath of God in our lungs that sustains us and makes us alive.

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Jesus said that the greatest love is shown when a person is willing to lay down his life for a friend.  I’ve heard so many true stories of people who gave their life to save somebody else or to save a group of people, and they’re always amazing.  I’ve often wondered how I would react in a similar situation.  If it was my family, like my wife or child, I’m sure there would be no hesitation to make that sacrifice for them.  But what about for a close friend, or an acquaintance, or a stranger, or even an enemy?  Yet that’s what Jesus did for us.   While we were still his enemies, Christ died to save us.  That is truly amazing, and it does demonstrate an amazing love.

So if the greatest love is shown by sacrificing your own life to save somebody else’s, then wouldn’t the greatest hate be to sacrifice somebody else’s life for the convenience of your own?  Have you ever thought about that–how unkind and uncaring and intensely selfish it would be to take someone else’s life simply to improve your comfort?  Can you imagine anyone being so calloused?  But it happens all the time.

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