Playing With Sin

You have heard it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that you whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose on of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Matthew 5:27-30

I was on duty Saturday and watched a bunch of episodes of "The Office". Most of the episodes are okay as far as content goes but one particular episode I was watching was getting kind of bad and I just felt Jesus calling me softly in my heart, Pat, turn that off, come spend time with me. Well, I didn't end up turning it off. In reality, by doing this, I ignored God.

Later that night I was just lying in my bed, not trying to sleep but just thinking. Every time I closed my eyes, scenes and characters from the show popped into my head. When I tried to pray I would just get distracted. I knew I had been feeding my mind with garbage so I just began reading Ephesians out loud to myself, trying to feed my mind with something good. I just felt so convicted and was left knowing that I would have to make a decision about whether or not to watch the show anymore.

Man, I battled in my mind for what seemed like forever and finally decided to stop watching it. My reason being that anything that would make me ignore God is worth being totally cut off from my life. The teaching about how we get rid of sin in our life from Matthew 5:27-30 is a hard teaching but it is true. Sin will never really leave me alone until I cut if off completely. Sin is like a odious and toxic gas against which I must shut the door and seal it completely, else it will slip through any cracks that I am too lazy to seal.