When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.”  For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.  Then, after desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.  James 1:13-15

Part of cleaning my yard usually involves burning leaves.  We have several large oak trees in our yard and by this time of the year, the leaves are everywhere.  What amazes me is that you can put one tiny piece of paper down under those leaves and light it on fire.  It will begin to burn and it will catch a few of the leaves around it on fire and they will begin to smolder.  It starts very slowly at first. When it catches, it spreads quickly through the pile of leaves.  It will burn the top leaves very quickly.  If you stir it occasionally it will continue to burn until you are left with a pile of ashes.  The leaves and paper have been totally destroyed and you are left with a pile of ashes.

Now the interesting thing is that dead, dry leaves and branches burn very well, but if they have not been pulled away from the tree and dried for quite some time, they won’t burn.  You can douse them with an accelerant, but even then, they may not burn completely.  John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches:  He that stays in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.”  If we are like those branches and we stay connected to the tree trunk we can’t be burned up in the fire.  Interesting isn’t it.  The Bible tells us that hell is a fiery furnace (Matthew 13:42).

Now as small children, we are taught not to play with fire, but were you taught not to play with sin?  You see playing with sin is the equivalent to playing with fire.  Our scripture passage tells us that our evil desires give birth to sin and sin gives birth to death.  It starts small like that fire, but before you know it, it is burning out of control.  It can also lead to you spending an eternity in the fiery furnace of hell.

We foolishly believe that just a little sin won’t hurt.  The problem with this way of thinking is that we are lying to ourselves.  There is no such thing as just a little bit of sin.  There are no small sins.  Sin is sin and it leads to death.

I can go grocery shopping and see a little small personal size bag of M&Ms and  think “wow, I want some M&Ms” knowing that I should buy the small bag.  But then I can walk around and convince myself that buying the 3lb bag makes more sense economically and that I can just have a few M&M’s each day.  Yeah right!  I know that’s not going to happen and before you know it the bag is gone and I am mad at myself.  Drug addicts become drug addicts because they foolishly think that they can handle just a little bit of that drug and walk away.  They convince themselves once they are addicted that they can quit on their own anytime they want to.

Sexual sin is the same way.  It starts small and before you know it, it is out of control.  A chat with the attractive co-worker by the water cooler turns into a chat in your office or their office and before you know it you are making plans to meet outside the office and have no regard to the fact that one or both of you are married.  I know several people that have lost their spouse to online relationships.  It starts innocently enough, just a chat here and before you know it they are planning some secret rendezvous.

Pay careful attention to this scripture.  Our evil desire is what leads to sin.  Sin leads to death.  We need  to nip it in the bud of our evil desire.  We know when we have evil desires.  When that happens we need to pray to God to help us with our sinful desire.  We need to ask Him to remove it far from us.

We have not because we ask not (James 4:3).  We don’t ask for God’s help because the sin looks so good that we don’t want God to take our desire away.  We don’t want God’s help in refraining from indulging in sin. We think we can do this on our own, but we fail and fall into sin.

Today I strongly encourage you to not play with fire. You will get burned. We are pleasure seekers and sin looks pleasurable and may even be pleasurable in the beginning.  Let’s face it if it didn’t look good, we wouldn’t want it, right?  Don’t believe the lies the devil is telling you.  It will drag you down and destroy you.  It will start slow like a smoldering fire but before you know what happened it will be burning out of control and destroying everything in its path.  Cling to God.  Don’t let the devil entice you into sin which separates us from God. If we cling tight to the vine we will continue to live.  If we allow ourselves to be cut away from the vine or the trunk, we will dry up and be easily burned and destroyed.

If you have indulged in sin, it’s not too late.  Turn to God and repent.  Ask for His help in giving up your sinful ways.  He is faithful to forgive and faithful to lead us on the right path (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

Have a great day!