Introduction/Basics Concluded…

II. What is Sin/ Lusts of the flesh, Free Will, and Foolishness?

ALL of the hurt and pain in the world we live in came/comes through, sin. Sin is not following God’s rules, but our own “lusts of the flesh,” and thinking that WE are smarter than Him. How do we know His rules? Yep, reading/listening to them through the study of His Word.

If He had made us without free will (the opportunity to choose OR ignore Him and His ways) we would have been a bunch of puppets and puppets can’t really love. He wanted people to be friends with… people He could love and that would learn to trust and love Him back. That choice gave people the chance to turn away from Him and His ways and become “Foolish,” which is the opposite of wisdom. (Psalms 14:1 says: The fool says in his heart, there is no God.)

Sin unleashed pain and everything that is the opposite of Love, and if you walk away from Love/God, enough, it will eventually lead to true death which is separation from God for eternity.

Because of “free will,” God knew we would “all sin and come short of the glory of God,” so He made a way for us to find our way back to Him, by demonstrating the awfulness of death which is the ultimate penalty of sin, and then paying that price himself through the sacrifice of His son.

Between Adam and Noah, He still interacted with men that sought Him and walked in His ways. They taught their children, etc. but as more and more people were born, the ones that didn’t want to follow God got together, just as they do today, and made their own “gods.” They wanted a “god” they could see, feel, touch, and be what THEY wanted him to be.! That is another thing about sin… it is “following the lusts of the flesh” instead of keeping the flesh under God’s control.

What are “lusts of the flesh”?

Let’s look at the 5 senses: sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell. These are things of the flesh. They were given to us so that we could enjoy the things that God created for us in this world. As with ALL of God’s gifts, these are wonderful and were meant to be used to enjoy the life God gave us.

The problem comes when we let them go too far and get out of hand… let them go from enjoyment into lusts that control us instead of things we control or we let God control. A “lust” is an uncontrolled craving, and THAT is what leads us into sin.

Examples:

Sight-- Letting our eyes roam where they shouldn’t… into places that “excite our lusts,” be that a candy store, a bakery, a car lot, window shopping, or places that incite sexual lusts.

Taste-- Eating to excess, also known as gluttony, which leads to all kinds of health problems (One of my major problems… :)

Touch-- Overspending at a furrier’s, or inciting sexual lusts…

Hearing-- Listening to things that lead our minds astray, like gossip, music or movies that implant foul language, or worse into our brains… garbage in—garbage out.

Smell-- This sense is strongly related to the sense of taste, and can lead to those same lusts, as well as, stimulating the brain to remember people, places, and times of intense emotional stimulations, (Sometimes, if your eyes are closed and you get just a tiny whiff of a smell, it will bring your mind back to a scene from your past very strongly.)

Wisdom helps us to know exactly what paths will lead to lust/uncontrolled cravings/sin and helps us learn how to avoid those paths, and recognize the paths of light and life that God would have us follow into His blessings.

Tomorrow, we will look at the first verses of Chapter 1 of Proverbs.

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