The Constrictor Nearby

James 1:14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.15Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

A couple of months back, I read a bizarre article of a man and his pet boa constrictor. This guy had purchased the snake when it was smaller, and raised and nurtured it to nearly ten feet in length. One afternoon at a party, he was showing a friend how cool it was to have the snake wrap around his shoulders and how harmless the snake was. The snake had other ideas though and decided that the man's neck was a better target. The large constrictor unexpectedly wrapped around the guys neck quickly and shut down his ability to breathe. Soon thereafter the man was dead. What started as a "look at me" fun show and tell, ended in death.

It is awful the way this guy died. I do believe there is a major learning point in this for all of us though. You see all of us have a tendency to want to keep something dangerous close by and within reach. It might not be as obvious as a 10 foot snake, but our sin nature fights to keep itself alive, and to do that it needs nourishment. When our wrong and sinful desires lead us to obtain, look, think or taste things we absolutely know are unhealthy for us, it is as dangerous as the man growing the pet snake that would later kill him. Think about it. The snake seemed innocent and cool. It was an attraction that got the man attention from other people. Day by day, the snake got bigger and stronger and then killed the guy. James tells us that sin follows this same pattern. Desire leads to sin. If we feed the desire and sin it grows bigger and stronger until it eventually chokes and kills us.

When you stop and look around, our society is nurturing sin like few others before it. Most of the desires seem innocent and passive like greed, vanity, lust, power and relief. The choices we make and habits we form to feed those desires raise up full blown sin patterns in our life like addiction to pornography, alcohol, work, self-looks, money, drugs, sex and a host of other temporary dangers. These, like the snake, choke the life from our lungs and will eventually kill you. Just as God said to able "Sin is crouching at the door and its desire is to kill you".

As you live today do you sense the evil attacking you? Have you stopped and asked God to identify what "constrictors" you are raising in your life and house that will snuff you and your family's lives out?

We all have battles with wrong desires. The worst response is to deny that you do. The right respnse is to aks God to convict us of wrong desires and sin and to turn to Him. We need to ask Him to give us a greater desire to be filled with Him, not things that will kill us. We need to be pressed in to His identity, not death.