The Oath

I just finished reading an interesting novel by Frank Peretti called The Oath.  The jist of it is that people became so controlled by their sins that it manifested itself into a dragon.  When they became too far gone, and made excuses about their sins, they were “hooked” through the heart and the dragon killed them.  One man found out the best way to kill it was to have Jesus in your heart.  So the more he prayed the higher advantage he had, but the more cocky he got, the more hooked he got and closer to death he got.

The book got me thinking about our own sins.  How often do we forget about God when we are “engrossed” in our sins.  We make excuses for why we do things even though we know it’s a sin.  We try to justify things only to have it grow larger and larger until we are “hooked” by it. Maybe we don’t have a visible stain on our hearts, but God sees it.  What would happen if our sins manifested themselves into something like a dragon? Would we be able to stop it?  To defeat it with trusting in God and asking forgiveness?  Or will we need more?

I think too often we think  that if we make an excuse then that makes it better or makes it not a sin.  Does that really work?  What purpose does it do other than make us feel better about something?  We try to make one thing into another thing.  We think one small thing stays that small but it only snowballs into something bigger and becomes a dragon like Peretti has in his book.  What do we do when it snowballs?