Chapter 32
...each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James 1:14-15
Did you know that all sin begins with a simple desire? We all have desires. Some desires are good and others not so much. But even good desires can lead to sin. Parents can desire obedient children. A man can desire a promotion at work. A teenager can desire to be accepted by her peers. We can all desire world peace. Nothing wrong with those desires.
...each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James 1:14-15
Did you know that all sin begins with a simple desire? We all have desires. Some desires are good and others not so much. But even good desires can lead to sin. Parents can desire obedient children. A man can desire a promotion at work. A teenager can desire to be accepted by her peers. We can all desire world peace. Nothing wrong with those desires.
But sometimes we begin to feel that we are entitled to our desires. We confuse our desires with our rights. Maybe our desires are the way things should be, but that still doesn't mean they are rights. So that is the first mistake--we believe a lie. We think we have a right to have things our way. Then someone comes along and frustrates our desires and that makes us angry. We feel our anger is justified, so we begin making demands. That is stage two of the sin cycle. First we desire something and believe we have a right to it, and then we demand it.
If the other person still does not give us what we want, we begin to judge that person. We become critical of them and we may voice that criticism to other people to get them on our side. After a while we find ourselves criticizing everything that person says or does and we begin keeping a record of all their sins. The seeds of bitterness begin to take over in our hearts. This is stage three: we judge others.
The fourth stage is the stage in which we feel justified in punishing the other person. We do things that we know will hurt the other person and it can be anything from slander to murder. If the other person was a friend, the relationship may be severed. In churches, if someone doesn't get their way, they may just pack up and leave, sometimes taking others with them. In families, the punishment often takes the form of estrangement or abandonment. Some people will try to destroy another person by systematically taking away everything they love, isolating them from loved ones, and destroying all their hopes and dreams. This is called emotional blackmail. Other people just commit murder plain and simple.
So those are the four stages of the descent into sin. I desire; I demand; I judge; I punish. The desire itself may be a good thing, but if we are willing to sin to get it, it has become an idol in our lives. And if we destroy another person, it becomes murder in God's sight.
The good news is that God is very gracious and he forgives our sins when we forgive others. If we repent of our sins, he is faithful and just and forgives our sins. It's outrageous! It's scandalous! But if we do not repent and if we continue to punish others, God will do the same to us. Jesus told a parable about that--the parable of the unmerciful servant: A servant owed the king a great debt, and the king forgave his debt. But then the servant went off and put another man in prison until he could pay off his debt. When the king found out, he became very angry and said to his servant, "You wicked servant! I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" So the servant was thrown in prison. And Jesus said, "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
