“If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but, rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers” (Ephesians 4:21–29).
I remember the day as if it was yesterday. My siblings and I were playing down in the basement while our mom was canning food upstairs in the kitchen. We were playing “snake”—slithering around on our bellies and making hissing sounds. Every so often someone would call out “Snake!” There we were, slithering around the basement and up and down the stairs, when my sister Jennifer went up to see Mom.
Suddenly, Jennifer saw the last thing she expected: a real, live snake, right in front of her. “Snake!” Jennifer cried. Our mom, thinking we were still playing, came out of the kitchen to see a “big snake” in her house. As soon as she saw the real snake, she told us to close the basement door and told Jennifer to get on a chair. Then Mom began grabbing knives and throwing them at the snake. Miss. Miss. Miss. Yes, she missed every time! Mom ran out of knives and was frantic. But Jennifer saw the sewing scissors lying nearby, picked them up, and calmly threw them at the snake. A HIT! The snake coiled into a ball. Mom covered the snake with a pot. And another on top of that one. And then something to weigh down the pots. The snake lay there until Dad got home and took care of it. After that, the hallway floor always had marks from where the knives hit it.
You know, we believers should treat sin the same way my family treated that snake. We should work to keep sin out. It’s not something we should play around with or let lie in the house. We need to “kill it” and stamp it out of our lives with all the strength we have.
Sin leaves an effect on us. Much like the floor had scars from the knives, some sins leave scars in our lives. Even so, it is much better to have the scars than the open, oozing, never-healing wounds that sin causes.
We need to “snip” sin out of our lives.
My response:
» What sin do I need to snip today?