The Common Cold

Luke 24:26-28 Jesus said to them, “It is written that the Messiah would be killed and rise from death on the third day. You saw these things happen—you are witnesses. You must go and tell people that they must change and turn to God, which will bring them his forgiveness. You must start from Jerusalem and tell this message in my name to the people of all nations.

I never cease to be amazed how readily we are able to rationalise away our sin, our rebellion, against God … as if sin doesn’t have any real consequences, as if God won’t really notice. But God does notice, and sin does have consequences. It just does.

I recently caught the flu in my travels; you know the shakes, the aching joints and my head … well, I just wanted to take it off at the neck for a while.

We all know what that’s like, and yet the flu (or indeed worse) is caused by these tiny, little microscopic viruses. They’re so small that you’d think they were insignificant. And yet, they knock you completely off your feet.

It’s like the impact of the things that we do that we know are just plain wrong –  the stuff that God calls “sin”. And all the time we’re thinking to ourselves, “Oh yeah sin, shmin. Technically it might be wrong, but it’s only small. It’s insignificant in the scheme of things.”

But wrong is wrong, no matter how small – and ultimately, sin has real consequences; consequences that will ruin our lives; consequences that will always seem disproportionately large to our tiny, little, microscopic … sin; consequences so devastating that God chose to deal with them by allowing Jesus to die on that cross.

Luke 24:46-48 Jesus said to them, “It is written that the Messiah would be killed and rise from death on the third day. You saw these things happen—you are witnesses. You must go and tell people that they must change and turn to God, which will bring them his forgiveness. You must start from Jerusalem and tell this message in my name to the people of all nations.

Sin may seem small, but its consequences are huge. That’s why Jesus died and rose again. No … sin is never small.

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.

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