July 25, 2018
Friends, stop thinking
like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. 1Cor 14:20
We can either waste
time educating ourselves on sin, or seek to be wise about Godly things.
In 2008, New York
Magazine published a story about kids and lying. In one study, researchers
gathered a group of children and read them The
Boy Who Cried Wolf. They assumed the
story would teach kids not to lie, but the children continued their usual rate
of lying. In the next study, researchers
taught the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, where George confesses
to his father and the father replies, "Hearing you tell the truth instead
of a lie is better than if I had a thousand cherry trees." The study discovered that it reduced kids lying
by 43 percent. The research concluded
that the threat of punishment simply teaches children to learn how to lie
better, but learning the value of honesty reduced the propensity to lie.
The Bible has been saying that same principle for
years: If we focus on sin, we’ll just
figure out new ways to avoid consequences.
But if we focus on righteousness, we’ll discover less temptation to sin.
Paul tells the church to get away from evil by focusing on
the Lord. Much like a child, if you tell
a person NOT to do something, they lock onto the forbidden fruit in their
brains, trying to find excuses or methods of obtaining it. But when we put value on high character
qualities, it stretches us to pursue them and thereby avoiding
temptations.
Do a little inventory on your life and the things you have “learned”
or are “learning” right now. Some of
those activities are at best useless, and at worse quite sinful. Consider how educated we have become on ‘safe
sex’, the number of drinks before becoming intoxicated, what is appropriate or
offensive talk, how to drive fast without getting caught, what rating is
acceptable for us to watch or play, you name it. We have worked hard at learning more and more
about sin, and spend less and less time learning about truth and
righteousness. Paul said it well: childishness focuses on how to get away with
the wrong, maturity looks for what we can do to grow the right.
It’s time to quit getting better at avoiding consequences
and start getting better at gaining blessings.
Make a few changes in your life to elevate the values of God, and quit
learning the methods of sin. That may
mean removing some things in your life, changing your schedules, even staying
away from improper friendships.
After all, God gave us this incredible mind for a reason!
No comments:
Post a Comment