Got Milk?

One Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, my grandson Bryton (22 mths), had taken a late nap and he woke up hungry. My daughter, Ashlie, named several things for him to eat and he shook his head and said "no" to each one. Finally, he went to the cabinet and got out a box of cereal and took it to her. So she fixed him a bowl with a little sugar and milk and set it on his tray.

A little while later I noticed that his cereal was still in the bottom of the bowl, but all the milk was gone. It kinda struck me as odd that he drank the milk because he won't drink white milk anymore. He will only drink it if it has chocolate in it. But then I realized that he drank the milk out of the cereal bowl because when it had a little sugar in it and it was in the cereal, it didn't seem like milk. It was as if it were disguised as something different.

Hmmm... aren't we as Christians sometimes like that? Trying to disguise things as Christianity when in reality they aren't even close? We think if we put a different label on something then it changes what it actually is, but that isn't the case at all.

We can label sin in all sorts of fancy and pretty ways, but the reality is that it's still sin. Plain and simple. Just sin. Oh, we can make it sound completely opposite of what it really is. We can manipulate it. We can justify it. We can even convince ourselves that it's something different. We can make all kinds of excuses about why 'it's really not that bad'. We can even call it something else. But we can't hide the fact that it is sin.

1. A movie is wrong even if it "only" has 1 ugly word.
2. A book is wrong even if it "doesn't really have anything questionable in it".
3. Music is wrong if ANY words at all go against the teachings of Christ.
4. Going places where things go on that aren't godly is still wrong. Even if we aren't partaking in it.
5.Gossip is wrong even if you tell yourself you are really just trying to get people to pray for them or the situation...

We have to call sin what it is. We can't afford to compromise our beliefs and our convictions. We can't live in denial.

We don't need to water down our theology.

We are the temple of God and need to present ourselves in that manner. Holy.

"For I am the LORD your God.. be holy because I am holy" (Leviticus 11:44)

"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are."
(1 Corinthians 3:15-16)

Still basking in Him,
Beth