“How can I convince someone to avoid the bomb in their path, if I am not convinced that bomb is dangerous for me?”—Rev. David Davis

We are real good at noticing each other’s faults—we see them all the time. After all, to err is human, and we err…a lot. We also know how to call someone out, at least we think we do, when we see a brother stumble. We call them out because it isn’t what they ought to do, and when asked what the deal is we usually respond, “that’s not what you need to be doing”, or perhaps, “That’s not good”. These generic statements do nothing to deter someone from an action; it may stop them there, but it won’t halt the action/attitude from occurring again. We recognize that sin is an issue, a bomb if you will, but we don’t take it seriously enough to take action. How can we convince someone to avoid the bomb in their path, if we are not convinced that bomb is dangerous for us?

I  Corinthians 9.27 “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should become disqualified.” (ESV)

Imagine you are a scout for a military troop. Your job is to survey the road ahead for ambushes, obstacles, etc. This particular venture you stumble upon a bomb. Your training tells you to let the unit know of the ordinance in the path; but it doesn’t seem active, you may even try defusing it. No! You tell the unit to avoid it at all costs, not just side step it, but change routes. Why do we attempt to belittle the bombs in our own life? We think that a particular sin is manageable, or that it can be side stepped, but a bomb has an extensive blast radius. So too, sin cannot be side-stepped or be treated as insignificant; we need to deal with it properly, and treat it for what it is, a bomb. Of course, you can’t defuse a bomb unless you are trained to do so; you cannot diffuse sin, God is the one equipped to handle that. We must turn over our sin to the one that can diffuse it, our job is to identify it, and seek its diffusion.

Keep yourself under discipline or else how can you convince someone of the bombs on their path?