There is a Jewish legend about a rabbi who went on a journey with his servant named Jacob. Their cart was drawn by a lively horse of which the rabbi was very fond. When they came to a roadside inn, the rabbi went in to rest, leaving his horse in Jacob’s care. In the meantime, a horse trader passed by and, seeing Jacob, soon made friends with him. He plied him with drink and Jacob soon was so intoxicated it was easy for the horse trader to induce him to sell him the horse for a song.

Although drunk, Jacob was frightened by what he had done. What would the rabbi say when he came out of the inn? An idea occurred to him. He placed himself between the empty shafts of the cart and started to chew hay. When the rabbi came out, he was struck speechless by what he saw. “What’s the meaning of this?” he stammered. “Where’s the horse?”

“The horse? That’s me!” replied Jacob, and he uttered a loud whinny. “What on earth are you doing?” murmured the rabbi. “Have you gone out of your mind?” “Don’t be angry with me, Rabbi,” pleaded his servant, Jacob. “Years ago a great misfortune happened to me. I was a young man then, a little wild and foolish, and, may God forgive me, I sinned with a woman. So to punish me, God turned me into a horse – your horse. For twenty long years you have been my master, Rabbi, little suspecting who I really was. Well, it seems my punishment is over. I’m again a man, praise God!”

When the Rabbi heard Jacob’s story he was amazed. However, there was the practical difficulty of how he could continue his journey without a horse, so he went into the market place to buy one. Suddenly, he stood face to face with his old horse. It was munching a wisp of hay at the horse trader’s. Going up to it with a frown, the rabbi whispered in its ear, “For goodness sake, Jacob! Again, so soon!”

Tags: judgment, sin, temptation

The girl knelt in the confessional and said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

“What is it, child?” the priest replied.

“Father, I have commited the sin of vanity. Twice a day I gaze at myself in the mirror and tell myself how beautiful I am.”

The priest turned, took a good look at the girl, and said, “My dear, I have good news. That isn’t a sin – it’s only a mistake.”

Vanity certainly is a sin. We have very little to do with our outward appearance. If we’re well endowed, we ought to be grateful to God for this blessing. But if I take responsibility for the good in my life, I also must take responsibility for the bad in my life. Its better to just ourselves as a vessel God has chosen to use and not be concerned, positive or negative, with the outward shell. Paul said, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Tags: confession, humility, mistake, sin, vanity

In March 1918, Albert Gitchell, an Army cook at Fort Riley, Kansas, was diagnosed with the flu. Before the year was out, it had spread around the world, killing perhaps as many as 40 million people. This highly contagious virus became a pandemic – a global epidemic.

One physician reported that patients would rapidly show flu-like symptoms, develop the worst type of pneumonia he had ever seen, and then suffocate within hours. Fortunately, the influenza disappeared as mysteriously as it had begun. But doctors remained baffled by its cause and were helpless to find a cure.

Israel also had to deal with a plague, but they knew its cause and asked Moses for a cure. In righteous anger, God had sent serpents whose poisonous bite left a lethal wound. He then told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. All who looked at it were healed (Numbers 21:1-9).

Centuries later, Jesus spoke of this as a symbol of His death on the cross: “Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

Tags: disease, serpent, sin

Did you know there are slave-making ants that reside in the Amazon rain forest? Hundreds of these ants periodically swarm out of their nest to capture neighboring colonies of weaker ants. After destroying resisting defenders, they carry off cocoons containing the larvae of worker ants. When these “captured children” hatch, they assume that they are part of the family and launch into the tasks they were born to do. They never realize that they are forced-labor victims of the enemy.

Just as these little creatures are captives from the time of their birth, so we humans enter the world enslaved to sin and Satan. We act out what we think is ‘normal’ behavior, but leave a trail of broken debris in our wake. Only by turning to Christ and following His ways can we break free of the slavery of sin.

Joshua 24:15 says, “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve”. We are all servants. Our decision, as Joshua pointed out, is not whether we will serve, but whom.

Tags: ants, service, sin, slavery

I hate mudholes. A sheep and a pig will react differently in a mudhole. A sheep that falls into the mud will not be happy there. He will struggle and cry until he gets out.

One the other hand, a pig goes around looking for a mudhole. When he finds it, he slides in with a grunt of satisfaction. In fact, he will squeal if an attempt is made to pull him out.

By nature and without the convicting work of God’s Spirit, a sinner is like a pig – he seeks evil and temptation and has no desire to be delivered from sin. The follower of Christ, however, is compared in the Bible to a sheep. He should never be found in the mud of sin. What do you do to avoid a mudhole?

Tags: holiness, mudhole, pig, sin

Things have changed over the years. Back in the 1950s there was an active alley-way behind every house in Butler. A man named Goofy (that was actually what everyone called him) Bowers came down the alley with a team of horses and a wagon to pick up garbage and haul it to the city dump on the edge of town. Obviously, these were before the days of plastic garbage bags, and the wagon smelled horrific.

These days we have those sanitized garbage bags, and, unfortunately, sanitation labor strikes. During one of those strikes in a major US city, bags of garbage mounted up in alleys and along curbsides during the Christmas season, sending a stench into the air which quickly became unbearable. Tempers flared and news conferences were quickly called by city officials in an attempt to squelch the tempers and reach a solution.

One fellow was an entrepreneur, however.

He boxed his garbage, wrapped it in Christmas paper, sat it on the front porch, and then chuckled as thieves quietly mounted his porch in the darkness and stole all his garbage. He got rid of the stench.

Sin is like rotting garbage: get rid of it!

Tags: Christmas, garbage, humor, sin