6 March
Read Genesis 3:1-6 and reflect on the passage.
What Makes for the Most effective temptation? I can tell you what makes for the least effective. Outlandish suggestions—Go rob a bank; kill 25 people! Of course, I’m not going to leap so far out of bounds. What makes for an effective temptation is the nudge to take a tiny step across the line. It doesn’t seem so very bad. No one will notice. And tomorrow, take another tiny step further afield. And then, invite someone else to join in taking tiny steps over the edge with you. Pretty soon, we have so many people taking tiny steps together that we cannot even see the line that we have crossed. And the whole crowd is now living out of bounds as the “new normal.”
As we read the story of the first fall into temptation, we may shake our heads. How could they? But in reality, we have the innate tendency to relive it again and again. We disregard the lines that God has drawn to protect us and we inch across them, using our own rationalizations to tell ourselves that we are not so bad. Our rebellion is incremental as we chart a course far from God.
Questions
1. In what areas of your life do you inch across the boundaries God has set up to protect you?
2. How do you rationalize your disobedience?
Prayer
Father, thank You for Your patience. I ask for help to acknowledge my tendency toward incremental rebellion. Forgive and restore me to Your good way.
—David Mann
What Makes for the Most effective temptation? I can tell you what makes for the least effective. Outlandish suggestions—Go rob a bank; kill 25 people! Of course, I’m not going to leap so far out of bounds. What makes for an effective temptation is the nudge to take a tiny step across the line. It doesn’t seem so very bad. No one will notice. And tomorrow, take another tiny step further afield. And then, invite someone else to join in taking tiny steps over the edge with you. Pretty soon, we have so many people taking tiny steps together that we cannot even see the line that we have crossed. And the whole crowd is now living out of bounds as the “new normal.”
As we read the story of the first fall into temptation, we may shake our heads. How could they? But in reality, we have the innate tendency to relive it again and again. We disregard the lines that God has drawn to protect us and we inch across them, using our own rationalizations to tell ourselves that we are not so bad. Our rebellion is incremental as we chart a course far from God.
Questions
1. In what areas of your life do you inch across the boundaries God has set up to protect you?
2. How do you rationalize your disobedience?
Prayer
Father, thank You for Your patience. I ask for help to acknowledge my tendency toward incremental rebellion. Forgive and restore me to Your good way.
—David Mann
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