Of sin and duty

No one sins out of duty

I read this line from a book earlier this week and had me thinking on the drive to work.

No one gets up in the morning and tell himself or herself, I MUST sin.  We choose to sin because of the hollow promise it offers.  A rebellious choice more satisfying, more joyful, more pleasurable.

That's the lie of satan.  A broken world.

Sin...it can be drunkness (Getting mad drunk is fun) or lust (porn)...

Someone also said that when a good thing becomes the ultimate thing it is a sin as well.

I think these days, it is much harder to ask people, Christians, to let things go loosely than cling on to them as if their life is depended on it.

We can talk about relationship, jobs or status.  Are these things bad? No, of course not.  However, it becomes our own idol when they matter the most in our lives....

I must have her because she is the only one that will complete me.  Without her, I am truly nothing.  If anyone (guys) get in my way, I will go out of my way to knock them down. 

I must get this education because this is the job/career I want.  If I can't get this degree, my life is hopeless and I am lost.

...

And we can see how the prayers will go.....God, I deserve this...God, I pray for you for this....God, I serve in church. I do so much for You.  I am a leader.  I serve the community. I even hang out with brothers and sisters that no one wants to hang out.  Can't You at least grant me this?   You own me.....

...

Love the Father's thing..but not necessarily the Father.

If we take it one step further, we can see how when good things become the ultimate things, they are hollow and broken.

Going after a relationship as the ultimate thing leads to a person in jealousy and even hatred...

She is the only one in my life. If I can't have her, no one else can.   (Perhaps this is why couples in the heat of anger, kill the other person?)

My life is define by my education.  This is who I am and I will do whatever it takes to get to the top.  If you get in my way, you are going to get it because I am going to beat you down. (Perhaps a higher divorce rate and broken family because of the chase in the rat race?)

...

I am quickly reminded about the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4).  She had five husbands and now living with a man that is not even her husband.  Clearly, even 2000 years later in today's standard, we see something is wrong here.  

At worst we can call her an adulterer.  The type that sleeps around.  I am sure it is just as shameful to do it back then as today.  But really why would she do it?  Does she get up in the morning and tells herself, I must sleep around because it is my duty to do so?  Or does she find the joy and the love from these different lovers?

Probably the latter.  Yet, the love that she longs for, that she thirsts for, cannot be satisfy from human relationship.  

Jesus told her that He is the Living water and anyone who drinks it will never thirsty again (John 4:13).

And she wants it.  She desires it.  And Jesus offers the love which she cannot find in anyone else.

When our relationship with the Lord is broken, we will earnestly search for the filling from something else.  Love, money, power.....all these things are good.  But if we seek them as the ultimate things, we are worshiping these things and in the long run, it will disappoint us.  Never satisfy us.

I continued to reflect the 'sins' in my life.  My love to get drunk before I met Jesus.  Why?  I can say it is a mix of pride and enjoyment.  Boastful in telling others how much alcohol I can drink.  Boastful in saying that even with a liver transplant I can still drink.  The fun of the feeling of getting wasted.  When my feet starts to go numb....

Yet, it is hollow.  I get up the next day, have a hang over.  Vow to never do it again.  But the joy of doing it persists. As I don't have the living water. I crave for it to fill the gap again.  Like a druggie.  I am hooked. I need that quick fix.  And so the vicious cycle begins.  Another night out with the boys in a bar somewhere.  That's what we call being trap by sins.  In the Bible, that's death (Romans 6:20).

A while a go, a Christian sister mentioned that she wanna go to party, get wasted and get drunk.  She said to me, 'Well, Cliff.  At least you had a chance to have fun right?  I want the same chance as well.  This is my turn to do so.'

I didn't know what to say..but at that point, those weren't the moment I missed at all.  Those memories were all just a blur.  In fact, if those memories weren't there, I wouldn't miss a thing.  It was fun at that point. But it just fades away.  Very very quickly.

Not sure where we go from here...but I think as Christians, we should show others that Jesus is indeed the Living water.  The One that truly satisfies.   The vicious cycles of sin can be broken. There is a glory and beauty greater than those things which we hold onto so tightly.  There is indeed freedom from Christ.