Just the Before

It wasn't his main point, only a brief comment before beginning his sermon.

Yesterday, the Pastor said, "The Devil only shows you the before, not the after." His example was seeing a commercial or advertisement of a couple enjoying a drink and how appealing it looks. That's the before. The after is many years down the road and a person hospitalized and dying of cirrhosis of the liver.

Whether someone drinks or not isn't the point and I hope no one gets caught up in the alcohol versus not-alcohol debate. The point is how appealing the Devil can make sin appear. And we only see the fun parts, the enjoyable parts, the exciting parts of a sinful choice. We don't see the repercussions, the hurt, the danger, the sorrow those innocent-seeming sinful choices can lead to.

Some of my family members are deeply hurt and wounded by sinful choices a friend has made. Although this person may think his choices are only affecting him, they're not. They are impacting his family, his friends, his friends' families (as we try to help our kids deal with their hurt and anger), and who knows who else?

Somewhere down the road (we hope), he will realize the destructiveness of his behavior and make a U-turn. However, damage has already been done and some things won't be able to be altered or repaired.

The scripture that runs over and over in my head is:

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.  He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward (Hebrews 11:24-26).

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Dark Rooms

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Now that it's spring and the trees have all their leaves, my kitchen is dark most of the day. We have a large maple tree in the backyard and a small woods behind our house that block out the sunshine.

This morning I idly thought, "Most homes have dark rooms." Then I thought, "Most hearts have dark rooms too."

What are the dark rooms in your heart, the places you don't want anyone else to see? These could be sad, traumatic, hurtful, or painful experiences that still ache too much to share with anyone.

They could also be dark thoughts, those places of sin we desire to hide. Would anyone still love us if they could see into those dark rooms? Envy, greed, anger, pride, judgment, lust, just a few of the dark rooms of the heart.

As believers, we know light and darkness cannot exist in the same place. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit (and we are), how can we reconcile the existence of light and darkness in our hearts? We are not fooling God. He knows all about the dark places within, but yet we still try to hide those secret little rooms inside of us.

It seems our dark rooms constantly need to be discovered and broken open. The doors and windows must be opened to let in the light of God's love and forgiveness and let in the fresh, clean breeze of the Holy Spirit to blow away that which is wrong within us. God won't force the locks, we have to willingly open the doors ourselves so He can enter and clean out the dark rooms in our hearts.

Some of my dark rooms have rusty hinges because I have kept them locked tight for too long. It might be time to get some spiritual WD 40 to loosen the hinges so the Lord can go in and do His work letting light into my dark rooms.