NEGATIVE TRANSFORMATION

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.

Ecclesiastes 7:7, 9

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

There was once a prominent lawyer who had built a successful practice and great reputation in the city where he worked. He employed nearly two dozen lawyers, an indicator of just how successful he was. He would have been the envy of many law firms.

But then something happened. He allowed sin to enter into his life in a big way.

According to the federal investigation, he convinced clients to pay him large sums of money to make charges or investigations against them go away. The only problem was that there were no investigations or charges against the clients. They were all fabrications. When the amount of money bilked from clients was added up, it amounted to a million dollars.

Sin led to a negative transformation and a once wise, well respected lawyer became a foolish man with criminal intentions.

Extortion turns a wise person into a fool.

A man who held a supervisory position working for the United States Navy Criminal Investigative Service was charged with bribery after he chose to provide confidential information about an investigation into a foreign service provider accused of overcharging the Navy more than 20 million dollars. In return for the information, the man, who had worked for the NCIS for 11 years, received money, travel, and prostitutes. Again, it was sin that caused a negative transformation as a man’s heart was turned corrupt by the bribes offered he was offered.

A bribe corrupts the heart.

A veteran homicide detective rear ends a car carrying a family who had just left the state fair. Both angered by the incident, the family’s father and the detective get out of their cars and engage in an argument and then confrontation which culminates in the detective drawing his weapon on the father after they are separated.

The charges brought against the detective leads him to resign his position and face the legal outcomes for his actions. Sin-laced anger turned a man who had spent his life enforcing the law into a foolish law breaker.

Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.

There are more examples of negative transformation from sin than could ever be written down in a lifetime. Just look at the Bible and you can see any number of them within the scriptures – Cain, the brothers of Joseph, King Saul, David, and Judas Iscariot just to name a few. There’s little wonder why God hates it so much.

For sin, takes what was once good and makes it bad. It makes a living off of tainting every heart that the Lord intended to be perfect. It infects people created for righteousness with wickedness.

Friends, we are all vulnerable to sin’s influence and its consequent negative outcomes. No one is immune. This is why we need to stay close to our Lord each and every day, treasuring His word and embracing His Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). The treasures of the world will inevitably lead us to sin and negative transformation from the people God desires us to be. Conversely, when we make Jesus our treasure, we will live according to His will and His way and His life because our heart will always be with Him. And when we experience this, we will always be transformed in positive ways, conformed to the very image of God Himself through modeling His Son.

In sum, the Lord, through this devotion is simply asking us, “What is transforming you today: sin or Jesus?”

How will you reply?

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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