Warnings… Fever, swelling, headache…. Flashing red lights, sirens…..
When our bodies have something amiss, they are designed by The Creator to message us that something is wrong. We ache, run a fever, etc.
When we see red lights flashing on the highway, we know there is something to pay attention to in order to avoid danger for ourselves.
We hear the sound of a smoke alarm in our home and we get to our children and crawl out, having been warned that we could die if we stood up. Warnings…
Our oldest son has always had a morbid curiosity about snakes. It’s a love/hate relationship. We warned of the danger. He liked to stomp them with the heel of his boot. We warned again. Firmer. He stomped them still. Until the day the fangs stuck in the leather of his boot. I don’t think he’s stomped another one.
He told us yesterday, (with the hair on his arms standing up), about seeing a cottonmouth water moccasin on the road. Of course he had to stop and look. The snake had been killed, it’s head was missing. Blood was pooled around the headless snake, drying on the hot pavement. Then…the body of the snake moved, slithering itself into an s-shape, writhing.. ( he shuttered as he told it..)
I’ve not been able to shake it from my mind, this headless, therefore venom-less snake of snakes. ‘Cottonmouth’ is a name everyone around here knows and fears. They are deadly, and they are aggressive. Most snakes will run from people. Cottonmouths will come for you.
It dawned on me almost as I woke this morning, the parallel of this snake story and the sin in a believer’s life.
I am saved. I don’t deserve it. I can not be holy and perfect, therefore I could not stand in the Presence of a holy God. I fall short…it’s called ‘sin’. The death that I DO deserve, the eternal and spiritual death that separates from God,…it is paid….FOR me…BY Jesus Christ. It is finished, settled.
“I will put hatred between you and the women. Your children and her children will be enemies. Her Son will crush your head. And you will crush his heel.” (Gen. 3:15 NIrV)
The venom is gone. It can’t take my life. But there is still danger of sin. It still writhes and can curl itself around in my life. It can ruin my credibility as a witness.
Our enemy strikes over and over. His venom is deadly to those who are not saved from it. His fangs can sink in deep, do tremendous damage, and bring on an eternal death.
Don’t mess with the snake…don’t try to stomp its head…let Jesus do that for you.
And then stay away from the writhing body, “…throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”(Heb. 12:1)
