The Deadliest Catch
Tilapia with Mango Salsa
I had delicious fish for dinner the other day: a little spray of lemon, mango salsa on top, nice bed of rice alongside some cooked veggies.
“That little fish was delicious,” I thought to myself.
You know what was probably the last thing the fish thought to himself?
“That little worm was delicious.”
Then he felt something sharp tug at his cheek–next thing you know…
He was served with mango salsa.
No fish bites the hook. Fish bite a worm (with a hook inside).
Staying alive means seeing the hook clearly enough to avoid the juiciest of worms.
This is your battle against sin.
Sin pulls at your fleshly instincts. You want to gobble up your cravings. Sin keeps you enslaved because it preys on your cravings and masks its corruption.
You may not feel a tug on your cheek, but sin’s deception has real enslaving power. You go deeper into your cravings with a hardening heart that leads to more cravings. The spiral intensifies, till death. Ignoring the “hook” leads to enslavement and death.
Ephesians 4 describes it this way…
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
I’ve worked with several Christians who feel defeated by sin, enslaved to the habits they’ve built, and utterly crushed by the thought of a life of obedience. They can barely take up a single day of obedience, how could they make it a month or a year or a lifetime!?
What if you stopped worrying about obeying for the rest of your life and avoided one juicy worm at a time?
A lifetime of obedience starts with the Holy Spirit’s help to see the hook and flee the hook.
You can slow down in prayer and ask the Spirit to help you see the hook in pornography, in angry outbursts, in gossip, in laziness.
You can flee with one aggressive and prayerful step away from temptation in the Spirit’s strength.
You don’t need to overcomplicate things today, Christian.
See the hook and flee the hook with the Spirit’s help! Sinful habits you’ve built may mean this is a minute by minute or hour by hour battle.
You’ll never be above getting hooked, but the Spirit can help you leave behind your worm addictions.
I heard a preacher once say, “Sin will take your farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”
Just ask the fish I ate at dinner last night!
Can you see the hook?