DAY TO DAY LIVING - COMMANDMENT NO. 3

COMMANDMENT 3 - IS SOMETHING ROTTEN?

Galatians 5:9: "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough."

To make bread you need to add yeast to the flour mixture. The yeast causes the dough to increase in size by fluffing the dough up with air. It only takes a small amount of yeast to cause a large amount of dough to rise. Try putting a rotten apple into a bag that contains fresh apples. Do you know what will happen? The rottenness of the rotten apple spreads to the others and they all will become rotten. You are probably thinking by now, "And your point is?" The things that we do and say are like rotten apples or yeast. One small thing can become a very large out-of-control thing. Our behavior often hinged on what type of friends we had. It is a common thing for kids to get involved in a bad activity as a group when as individuals, the kids would never have become involved in that particular activity. Often, it is only one kid's idea to participate in that activity. If the kid is a persuasive individual or has assumed a leadership position then the others tend to follow along even if they know they shouldn't. The one "bad apple" causes the entire group to become "rotten." The "rotten apple" process can also take place in the life of an individual. Have you ever noticed what happens when you allow yourself to do something you know is wrong? We think one tiny discretion won't make a difference. Then we find ourselves doing the same and more once we have opened the door to that temptation. If one tiny one is OK then what difference does it make to do another tiny one, then another, then a larger one ?? That process can also be applied in a reverse fashion to the things we should do and we don't. I have found that if I deviate from a pattern of reading my Bible every day it becomes easy to not read it for two days in a row, then three, etc. We need to continually examine our lives for rotten apples that need to be removed. We also need to be careful not to allow any to enter our lives in the first place! So can we do it? You bet.