Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. (C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity)
As Satan hissed promises into the ear of Eve, he did so with the recognition that an appeal to ego would be the gateway sin to all other sins. The snake distorted the language and love of God… and the distortion has never gone away. It is rooted deeply in me; and I fear, in all of us.
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)
Eve left the God that loved her to pursue an affair with herself… and so did Adam.
And so did we. And so do we.
Before my god becomes power or pleasure… my god becomes me.
Politely and inconspicuously we cheat. Our hearts and minds wander to a place of rationalization and justification.
We hit one more pornography website… because we deserve it… because we set our own rules.
We wave our fist (or worse) at a driver that cut us off; or we raise our voice (or worse) at a spouse that doesn’t understand.
We justify our greed and envy because we’re not as bad as the 1%.
We live lives of comparison and competition. We’re consistently better than or not as bad as…
- For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. (2 Timothy 3:2-5)
Before there was confusion about marriage…
Before there was unspeakable evil done to unborn babies…
Before there was a multi-billion dollar pornography business…
Before there was Wall Street corruption…
Before there were street corner drug deals…
Before there were drive-by shootings…
Before a husband broke the promise he made to his wife…
Before slavery…
Before intellectual arrogance…
Before…
We cheated on God with ourselves.
Ending this affair is only possible with Jesus. Ending this affair is always possible with Jesus.
- for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)
What if we got serious about the sin that begets every sin? What would happen in our lives and our families and our communities if we faced into the root cause of the sin in our lives. What if we allowed the grace of God to do what it is capable of… to set us free from both the destructive behaviors of sin, as we deal with the Garden of Eden based crux of the issue… a love affair with me.
C.S. Lewis got it right… and only Jesus can change that.
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