Consequences – Proverbs 13:15

Good understanding produces favor, but the way of the treacherous is hard.

Typically, people learn as toddlers that disobedience has consequences.  When we ignore our mother’s instruction to stay away from the stove and consequently burn ourselves, the immediate and painful result of our defiance teaches us to listen to our mother’s wise instruction.  Unfortunately, as adults, we often forget the lessons learned in childhood.  We blithely hang onto our sin, thinking we may do so with impunity, as if we were exempt from the cost of our willful disobedience to our holy and just God.

However, because the Lord does not strike us with leprosy in the midst of our sin as He did to Uzziah,[1] does not mean our sin has no cost.  We delude ourselves if we believe that the lack of a visible connection between our sin and its penalty means that it causes our families and ourselves no damage.  Such thinking is gravely wrong, for although we do not always suffer for our disobedience immediately,[2] our blatant sin ultimately burns us as severely as if we put our hand on a hot burner.[3]  If we persist in our sin, we will not escape from paying its price,[4] and though the harm we cause ourselves by sin may be unseen and ostensibly intangible, it is real.  It causes a devastating separation from the Lord since He will not hear the prayers of those who abide with wickedness.[5]

Does some deliberate and persistent sin have you in its clutches?  Are you doing or thinking something you ought not do or think?  Are you refusing to do something the Spirit is leading you to do?  If so, shake free from your sin.  Give it up.  Listen and your heart will tell you that your sin can bring you no benefit.[6]  Rather it will attach itself like a cement weight around your neck, dragging you down, pulling you under, and draining your strength as you struggle to survive.[7]

Follow Jesus, the author of our faith, and He will help you overcome sin.  Allow Him to break your chains, turning you onto the path of righteousness, giving you victory over sin.  Receive your liberty as you rejoice in having avoided the hard, painful way of those who refuse to set themselves apart for Christ, and with your freedom papers safely in your breast pocket, walk in safety along the Roadway to Heaven.[8]

[1] 2 Chronicles 26:19

[2] Ecclesiastes 8:11-12

[3] Isaiah 9:18

[4] 1 Samuel 12:25

[5] Psalm 66:18

[6] Romans 6:21

[7] Lamentations 1:14

[8] Romans 6:22