Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil. Avoid it,
do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way. ~Proverbs 4:14-15
Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to anyone, able to teach, not resentful. ~2 Timothy 2:22-24
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. ~James 1:13-15
Incrementalism is usually our downfall. Have you ever heard that saying that goes something like, “Sin holds us longer than we want to stay and costs us more than we want to pay?” If we could see, at the outset what the true cost of sin is, most of us could resist it, just like a frog would jump as hard as it could to get away if you tried to put it in boiling water. No, we’re all too smart to enjoy sin when we know the tragic end result. We fall into temptation when the thing looks good.
Solomon talks about a road, a path of the wicked or the way of evil. Think about a walk down a road. You get somewhere one step at a time. Most paths aren’t straight. Highways are straight, but foot paths can meander. There are lots of curves and bends. If you like to explore, they can be fun, but you probably don’t want a meandering path for a life.
Most paths start out harmless and attractive, just like most temptations in life. Unfortunately, most paths that we shouldn’t take aren’t labeled with a sign, “Wicked Path Ahead.” We are curious, or we think one step on the path won’t hurt us and then, all of a sudden, we look up and wonder how we got where we are! Wisdom helps us discern wrong paths that aren’t labeled.
James explains how those paths work. Then he warns us that if we end up on one of those paths and we don’t turn around, we can’t blame God for how we got where we are.
Paul and Solomon are both telling us the same thing here, “RUN!” Flee the evil desires of youth because you don’t know where they will end. Paul can say, “evil desires of youth,” because he was talking to Timothy, who was young. But sadly, there are older people who are still ensnared by those same desires and who still struggle with walking away from them.
Then Paul gets specific and mentions being argumentative. He specifically says, “the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to anyone, able to teach, not resentful.” I wonder if, for us, as older Christians, that’s the biggest temptation we have to take a step down a wrong road. It’s hard to resist engaging in an argument. I think that the type of argument that is meant here is the back and forth in which both sides get angrier and angrier and less careful with their words. That does the cause of Christ no good. It may start small enough, but the path ends up going places that we didn’t mean to go and saying things that we didn’t mean to say. This doesn’t mean, obviously that we shouldn’t try to correct wrong thinking. Paul called us to be teachers, but it is good for us to practice sticking to the facts and holding the emotional turmoil at bay. Do it like a lawyer!
We may be able to resist really obviously crooked paths like murder or stealing, but words are probably the easiest wrong one step in which we can be tempted. Words can do more damage than we could ever imagine. I’m sure that you have stories of how they have hurt you. So, while we may be tempted to think that we don’t really need to heed the warnings in these verses because we’re beyond all that: are we really?
Prayer: Father, help me tame my tongue, the hardest task of all, according to You, through James. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Song: Words
Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to anyone, able to teach, not resentful. ~2 Timothy 2:22-24
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. ~James 1:13-15
Incrementalism is usually our downfall. Have you ever heard that saying that goes something like, “Sin holds us longer than we want to stay and costs us more than we want to pay?” If we could see, at the outset what the true cost of sin is, most of us could resist it, just like a frog would jump as hard as it could to get away if you tried to put it in boiling water. No, we’re all too smart to enjoy sin when we know the tragic end result. We fall into temptation when the thing looks good.
Solomon talks about a road, a path of the wicked or the way of evil. Think about a walk down a road. You get somewhere one step at a time. Most paths aren’t straight. Highways are straight, but foot paths can meander. There are lots of curves and bends. If you like to explore, they can be fun, but you probably don’t want a meandering path for a life.
Most paths start out harmless and attractive, just like most temptations in life. Unfortunately, most paths that we shouldn’t take aren’t labeled with a sign, “Wicked Path Ahead.” We are curious, or we think one step on the path won’t hurt us and then, all of a sudden, we look up and wonder how we got where we are! Wisdom helps us discern wrong paths that aren’t labeled.
James explains how those paths work. Then he warns us that if we end up on one of those paths and we don’t turn around, we can’t blame God for how we got where we are.
Paul and Solomon are both telling us the same thing here, “RUN!” Flee the evil desires of youth because you don’t know where they will end. Paul can say, “evil desires of youth,” because he was talking to Timothy, who was young. But sadly, there are older people who are still ensnared by those same desires and who still struggle with walking away from them.
Then Paul gets specific and mentions being argumentative. He specifically says, “the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to anyone, able to teach, not resentful.” I wonder if, for us, as older Christians, that’s the biggest temptation we have to take a step down a wrong road. It’s hard to resist engaging in an argument. I think that the type of argument that is meant here is the back and forth in which both sides get angrier and angrier and less careful with their words. That does the cause of Christ no good. It may start small enough, but the path ends up going places that we didn’t mean to go and saying things that we didn’t mean to say. This doesn’t mean, obviously that we shouldn’t try to correct wrong thinking. Paul called us to be teachers, but it is good for us to practice sticking to the facts and holding the emotional turmoil at bay. Do it like a lawyer!
We may be able to resist really obviously crooked paths like murder or stealing, but words are probably the easiest wrong one step in which we can be tempted. Words can do more damage than we could ever imagine. I’m sure that you have stories of how they have hurt you. So, while we may be tempted to think that we don’t really need to heed the warnings in these verses because we’re beyond all that: are we really?
Prayer: Father, help me tame my tongue, the hardest task of all, according to You, through James. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Song: Words
Comments
Post a Comment