• Dec 22nd, 2015 at 12:47 PM (CST)
• By PD
• Categories:

It's three days before Christmas and as I work in the office I go to the copying machine, and I look out the window. Three cars in close formation drive straight through the stop sign as if there were none. Were they students from the public high school around the corner and down the hill? Perhaps, as the cars were smallish and older models. Then, of the next three cars, two of them higher priced newer models, a pair of them also roll past the stop sign without so much as a flicker of brake lights. It is symptomatic of what's happening to the world. Ignore law, do what's most expedient.

How many of the drivers of those cars were Christian? Perhpas few, perhaps all. That's the problem; it's getting impossible to tell the behavior of Christians from pagans.

Getting away with it is a temporary state. Sin is not like a rifle shot, it's like buckshot, like a shotgun - it tends to scatter into many different areas of life. If a person is rolling through stop signs, there is a good chance they are lying and cheating not just the system, but also people they know, perhaps family.

This only goes on for so long, and eventually they get caught. Don't expect true repentance from the majority of them, as they feel little remorse over their lawlessness. They feel bad because they were caught and it will cost them.

My description of stopping at a stop sign would seem absurd to many in other cultures. In places like Hanoi or Calcutta stop signs are mere suggestions, where the violation is so continous people hardly see them any longer. But, there are other ways people skirt the law, bending and breaking rules in an attept to gain advantage.

That's what it is all about for them, gaining an advantage. They think in terms of advantage in relationships (i.e. more advantatage to try for the benefits of marriage while cohabiting), parenting (put the kids into daycare in order to work for more material things), their work (It's just a job, not an occupation with a reputation to protect), etc.  I see the Ad on TV for Best Buy with the tag line, "Win Christmas," as though gift giving  is  a competition, as though there is an advantage to be gained as the purported best gift giver.

Christmas isn't about personal advantage, or getting away with it; it's about giving it away. God "gives away" his precious Son to humans who don't deserve Him. Christ came to fulfill the law so that we might be redeemed from the consequences of the law, judgment by God of the lawless. Every time you disdain God's law and the law of men for your own advantage, you add another padlock on the door of your spiritual prison.

What do you think you are "getting away with"? You're not. It's harming you, building a case against you. The more you violate the law the more you establish a pattern of misdeeds preparing yourself for punishment.

The world thinks it's stupid to follow the law for the sake of the law. It leads to lawlessness and godlessness. They won't honor Christ, nor the celebration of his coming. They are too busy rushing, rolling through stop signs. My mother has a saying she used to utter when some fool sped past her on the highway at an obviously illegal speeed, "Rush on to your destruction!" Indeed, people need to begin "putting the brakes on," becasue they are pedal to the metal bypassing the law, God and the salvation He offers. 

No one is getting away with anything. I'm reminded of the saying, "Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a lifestyle. Sow a lifestyle, reap a destiny." We all choose; we can sow acts that will please our sinful nature, or we can sow acts that please the Spirit of God in us (see Galatians 5:16-25).

What about you? Are you caught up in the Christmas rush, rolling through stop signs? You had better... stop, and start thinking about being more lawful as a spiritual act of faith.