A Tuesday Treasure: Sin and Snakes

Yesterday, I was cleaning out the skimmers in our pool, until this stopped me in my tracks.

There’s only one kind of snake that I like, and that’s a dead one.

Go ahead and laugh, but I’m not even comfortable typing out the word snake. If something that simple gives me the creeps, you can imagine how taking the lid off my skimmer and finding one inches from my hand affected me. Let’s just say that my neighbors might have gotten a rude, and quite humorous awakening as I tried to scoop my foe out of the skimmer with a makeshift pole.

Yes, if I hadn’t been alone and someone could have filmed it, the sight of me wielding a 15 foot pole with a spaghetti strainer at the end of it would have been Instagram worthy for a million laughs.

But I wasn’t laughing.

I was shaking uncontrollably over this reptile that represents the fall of man and our greatest adversary since the garden.

And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
Genesis 3:14

It took me some time and a pep rally about faith clobbering fear before the snake met it’s maker at the end of a hammer. I hurled it’s lifeless body into the woods to become a part of the food chain, but the confrontation left me with a bad case the hebejebes for the rest of the day.

What if sin had us that undone?

What if we all went to the same great lengths to keep our distance from evil and put it to death, as I had that snake?

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
2 Timothy 2:22

A snake might hiss and slither, but it poses less of a threat to us than sin does.

All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
1 John 5:17

John Wesley used to frequently say during his sermons, “flee from sin as you would the face of a serpant.” After today, I know what he meant. Eww. Shreek.

Sin doesn’t reveal itself for what it is until its prey is firmly within its grasp, slowly being choked to an eternal death apart from the presence of God. It leaves massive destruction in its wake, so our response needs to be intense. Flee. Seek righteousness. Be holy.

Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
1 Peter 1:16

Instead of being surprised by the enemy or lured into getting cozy with him, flee as you would from the face of a deadly serpent. Take up the tools that God has equipped you with, and “put to death” those things that seek to rob you of holy living, just like you might if you found a snake in your skimmer.