When you're thinking sin, think scripture

Proverbs 6:27 (ESV)

Can a man carry fire next to his chest

    and his clothes not be burned?

June 12, is Independence Day for the Philippines. In 1991 the day was forever marked by one of the strongest volcano eruptions in history. Mount Pinatubo, dormant for over 500 years, began to erupt, and three days later exploded with twice the power of the 1980 Mount St. Helen's eruption. The release of power blasted a cubic mile off the mountaintop and the earth shook for eight hours. The eruption produced an ash cloud that rose over 50,000 feet into the atmosphere. If that wasn't enough, Typhoon Yunga then struck the island nation with fierce winds and torrential rains which mixed with the ash creating what the locals called "Black Saturday!"

The United States was forced to abandon and eventually close Clark Air Force base, located just a few miles from Mount Pinatubo, due to the devastating blanket of fallen ash. When a vulcanologist was asked to account for the widespread damage which sent thousands of American soldiers and Filipinos fleeing, he replied, "When a volcano is silent for many years, people forget it's a volcano and begin to treat it like a mountain."

Now here's a lesson from nature. We should always be aware of how our sinful nature has the potential to erupt. It would be a big mistake to ignore this possibility simply because it has lain dormant for a season...even a seemingly long one.

Solomon writes a profound statement in his book of Proverbs, which, when paraphrased goes something like this; "Can someone play with fire in his lap without incinerating his clothes?"

The enemy of our souls would love for us to believe that we can somehow play with sin, without it negatively affecting our spirit and our walk with the Lord -- oh how deceptive Satan can be!

D.L. Moody was a fairly simple man and I love the way he dealt with sin. He said, "When you're thinking sin, think scripture!"

Let's be on guard! Sin is a dormant volcano which can erupt at ANY moment and set our house on fire. How do we prepare? First, by being aware of the possibility...then...;"Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee". [Psalm 119:11] Let's meditate upon His Word, allowing it to sink deep into our minds and our hearts, so that the only fire which burns there...is the fire of God's Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear Lord, help us not become dormant and complacent about sin.  Help us to be on guard and ready for the times that Satan is trying to cause us to fail. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

Are You Willing to Bleed For Him?

Acts 20:28 (NIV)

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

A little girl in the Philippians stood outside the doorway of the church intrigued by the love and joy displayed by those inside. The American missionary had asked her to come in, but she had politely declined. It wasn't because she didn't want to accept the kind of offer. Quite the opposite; her heart was beckoning her to join in their singing and worship. They seemed so happy, and the fellowship was so spontaneous and natural. But this was a hostile area in the Philippines, and her father had strictly forbidden her to have anything to do with those Christians.

Unknown to the little Filipino girl, the missionary was praying fervently for her soul, longing to see the day when she would accompany her inside the village church and learn of Jesus and how He shed His blood on a cross so that her sins could be washed away. The girl knew something was happening because each week she found it harder and harder to say no to the missionary.

Finally one Sunday morning, she accepted. She accepted the invitation to attend the Sunday school class, but also opened her heart to Jesus and became a child of God. The missionary, overjoyed with the new believer, soon presented her with a beautiful white dress, representing the fact that Jesus had washed all her sins away.

Eager to see her new disciple the missionary rushed to the next service. But the girl was nowhere to be found. No one had seen or heard of her whereabouts. Concerned for the girl, the missionary traveled to her home village.

Upon arriving at her home, she found the young, new believer lying in the dirt. Her white dress was torn, filthy, and soaked in blood. The girl's father hadn't shared the missionary's joy in his daughter's new found faith. In a drunken rage he had beaten her, repeatedly kicked her, and left her to die.

The missionary gently lifted the fragile girl and carried her back to the church where a doctor rushed in to help her. But there was nothing he could do. He removed the ragged dress and cleaned her up, but her injuries were too severe. The young Filipino girl would soon die.

The missionary and other friends stayed with her, trying to comfort her during her final hour. Upon regaining consciousness she made an unusual request. Despite the pain and trauma of her father's beating, she was insistent on holding the white dress the missionary had given her.

They explained that it was torn and soaked with blood and dirt, but she insisted on having it in her hands. With the simple faith of a ten-year old she whispered, "I just want Jesus to know I was willing to bleed for Him."

Are you willing to bleed for Him?

Dear Lord, thank You for shedding Your blood for us so we can have eternal life. Help us be like the little girl and be willing to bleed for You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Are You banging on Bombs?

Romans 5:16 (New International Version)

Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.

Thankfully, there were no tragic results in Cebu City, which is in the Philippines.

It could have been different.

Using bars and picks workmen were excavating the foundation of a four-story building. They ran into some complications when they discovered a very large, very stubborn piece of metal in their way.

The workers pounded on that stubborn bit of metal. They pounded with a vengeance. They pounded, I mean pounded, until one of them stepped back to get a better perspective on what they were doing.

He got it. Realizing what they were working on, he shouted one word and he ran. The word he called out was "bomb!" And so it was. It was a 500-pound, live bomb, which we used to call a "blockbuster."

The sight of those workers scrambling out of the foundation's hole must have looked like a cut from a Keystone Kops silent film.

Thankfully, the bomb didn't go off.

That's not always the case, is it? Every day we Christians see people pounding away at spiritual bombs ... bombs that sometimes go off with a loss of life.

You do know the kind of bombs I'm talking about, don't you? There are bombs like envy, lust, greed and idolatry.

When those bombs explode, they can do horrible things. They can ruin an individual's outlook on life; they can turn a person away from the Lord.

This is why we need to be ready for the explosives the devil puts in front of us. At those times, at all times, we need to be relying on the Savior who put Himself between us and the forces of these killer explosives.

Dear Lord we pray today that we would always have You between us and the bombs of life. We pray that we would never let those bombs destroy us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.