I can’t do that...

A man and his friend were traveling across country. They were having a good time talking and sharing some of their life’s experiences. The laughter they had enjoyed previously came to an abrupt halt as another driver sped by cutting closely in front of them to get to the exit causing the older man to slam the brakes in order to avoid running into him. Obscenities spewed forth from the driver like a fountain; the driver was justifiably flustered and continued to rant and cuss for the next 5 miles; it took quite a while to get the whole ordeal out of his system. The passenger was shaken as well, but just looked on in disbelief without making a comment.

The two friends got hungry and stopped to get a bite to eat. After gorging themselves, they noticed a transient man who looked like he could’ve been a veteran based on his soiled military fatigues and all of the insignia embroidered on the jacket. The older man started to jibe and ridicule the man to his friend. As they walked out, transient asked for something to eat and the driver decided this was his opportunity to verbally abuse the man and chastise him for being lazy and useless to society; he then told the man that if he had a job he would have plenty to eat. The man’s young friend once again just stared as if in disbelief, but said nothing.

The two then got in the car and continued on their trek. The day was extremely hot, somewhere in the 90’s, and the two decided they had better get some gas to avoid being stranded in the middle of nowhere under the blazing sun. At the filling station the two could not help but notice an extremely attractive woman wearing shorts and a t-shirt. The older man immediately began to digress on what he would do if he could get his hands on her. After meditating on it he could no longer restrain his passion. He approached her and started up a conversation. The woman obliged him initially, but declined his advance. The man being spurned followed up with some lewd and suggesting remarks. As she walked away the man uttered a torrent of degrading, profane, and abusive language, which she ignored, but he made the point known that she was missing out by rejecting him. When he got back in the car, he retrieved his wedding ring from his pocket, placed it back on his finger, and sped off, still seething from being rejected. Based on everything that the man’s friend had witnessed on this trip he wasn’t surprised at all by the raunchy behavior; he took it in stride and just joined in the conversation about how hot she was and joked about him might have been more her type.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful and they soon reached their destination. The older man’s wife and child ran out to welcome them. He hugged them and they greeted one another, they then prayed and thanked God for bringing him and his friend back safely from their trip. After they had got all settled in, the younger of the two asked his older friend if he wanted to step outside and spark up a little hydro. The older man replied “You know I’m a Christian; I can’t do that.” His friend came back and said “oh, I'm sorry, I forgot”.

None of us are perfect, but that does not give us the excuse to live our lives as enemies of the Cross. We must live our lives in constant check mode; always checking to see if our lives are measuring up to the high calling (Philippians 3:14) we’ve received. There is no such thing as a little or harmless sin, and we can not live a life trying to please both God and our flesh. The bible says a man can’t serve two masters because he will love one and hate the other (Matthew 6:24). I know that scripture’s context was referencing serving money, but I believe it can be applied to other aspects of our lives. The Christian walk is not easy. We weren’t born Christian, and most of us weren't raised that way either, but we should be conforming more into the image of Christ (Rom 8:29) day by day as we learn to die to our flesh (Romans 8:13 and Col 3:5) daily and are continually transformed (Romans 12:2) in our hearts and minds. We need to take note of the fact that people are watching us, Christians, to see if we really believe what we profess by the way we walk this thing out. The bible says that we will be known by our fruit (Prov 20:11, Luke 6:3 and Matthew 7:16-20); it also says that a good tree doesn’t produce rotten fruit. Knowing that, we can be a catalyst for life or death. If we act as bad or worse than those outside of the faith, what kind of representative are we to the people on the outside looking in at us? Above all, remember that God is watching us, and He knows those that are His and everyone who claims to belong to Him must turn away from wickedness and seek to do His will (2 Timothy 2:19).