16 FEB: LITTLE LIES AND KITTENS
So that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:21
Mom noticed four-year-old Elias as he scurried away from the newborn kittens. She had told him not to touch them. “Did you touch the kitties, Elias?” she asked.
“No!” he said earnestly. So Mom had another question: “Were they soft?”
“Yes,” he volunteered, “and the black one mewed.”
With a toddler, we smile at such duplicity. But Elias’s disobedience underscores our human condition. No one has to teach a four-year-old to lie. “Surely I was sinful at birth,” wrote David in his classic confession, “sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). The apostle Paul said: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). That depressing news applies equally to kings, four-year-olds, and you and me.
But there’s plenty of hope! “The law was added so that the trespass might increase,” wrote Paul. “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,” (Romans 5:20).
God is not waiting for us to blow it so He can pounce on us. He is in the business of grace, forgiveness, and restoration. We need only recognize that our sin is neither cute nor excusable and come to Him in faith and repentance.
Reflect & Pray
Father, be merciful to me, a sinner.
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1