2003-02-17 - Balloons

Psalm 150:6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!

I keep getting notes from many of you who tell me that you like devotionals that couple life experiences with truth. So even though it is not my traditional style, I will from time to time do this. My preference is to go straight theology and try to apply it, but based on the email responses, the personal experience devotionals hit home better. One I did the other week generated over 700 responses. Please don't feel like I slighted you personally if I didn't get back to you. I also work two jobs.

I have a rule when I go to the dollar store. The rule is, "The sky is the limit." Sometimes I will spend upwards of five bucks. Well, I found a bag of 100 small balloons there the other day and thought that they would be an interesting toy for my three cats. So I took them home and needless to say, I am still out of breath. Anyway, the unexpected joy was that the static cling must be fairly strong in my house. These things attach themselves to the cats all the time. Sometimes I catch them walking around with 3-4 attached to them. When they figure it out it drives them nuts. When they are sleeping I pile the balloons on the cats.

Anyway, as I watched them try to shake the balloons off them it got me to thinking about sin and how we try to shake it off and yet it often seems that sin all too often still clings to us. It is much like one of my precious kitties trying to get a balloon off it's back. Sin so easily clings to us and once we have linked ourselves to it, it has already got it's static cling into us. It reminds me of Hebrews 12:1 which talks about the sin which, "so easily entangles us." Sin can be such a burden on our back. It can cling to us. It can entangle us. We all know this just as my cats know the headache of experiencing the static cling of balloons.

We all know the solution. It is Christ and resting in His grace and forgiveness. But when we are talking about sin and simply saying, "Jesus saves," well, we all know it is not that easy. We all have to act and do something when confronting sin. My cats would be walking around with balloons on them all the time if they did not do something about them. If we follow the analogy and call sin a balloon on our back, then we are walking around with them, and we can't get them off our back, or out of our lives, unless we act. Sure we must trust in Christ, ask forgiveness and rest in His grace, but we also must make changes or do what is needed to put the sin behind us. We can't walk around with balloons on. It is unfitting for a follower of Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

tim@cfdevotionals.org
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