Wrong Side of Temptation and the Original High Road

Today’s story is yet another from the Christmas holidays. I can’t help it. I stack up more stories than there is time to tell ‘em. At this rate, I should be opining on Valentine’s Day by Easter weekend.

I have a nutcracker collection that inhabits my dining room during the holidays. Gathered in groups on the dinner table, the side board, occasional table and china buffet, they make quite a statement. Just ask my grands. Emerson and Grant weren’t infatuated with my nutcrackers until I talked to them about not playing with Keggie’s little soldiers. After that, the forbidden fruit began calling their names.

Once, while their mamas were helping me clean up the kitchen, I returned to the dining room to wipe down the table and found the remnants of a nutcracker happy hour. The wooden partygoers were scattered from one end of the room to the other.  As I stood there taking it in, I heard giggling from beneath the table.

“Emerson. Grant…” Out they came, eyes wide as saucers.
“Someone’s been playing with my nutcrackers,” I said. Silence.

“Is there something y’all want to tell me?”

Grant looked at Emerson. The newly elected spokeswoman looked around the room like she was seeing the damage for the first time. And then she answered my question with one of her own.

“Keggie,” Emerson said. “Why have we been playing with your nutcrackers?”

If that isn’t a great illustration of the principle of sin that seduces us all I don’t know what is. Who hasn’t found themselves on the wrong side of temptation wondering how on earth they got there? Paul talks about this principle of doing what we don’t want to do and not doing what we do want to do in the book of Romans. But he also celebrates the solution! As believers, we don’t have to be tripped up by this sin principle. Christ frees us from its power as we live to Him. His offer is the original high road. Take it and live free from the law of sin and death.

Hugs, Shellie