May 25
“In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:8)
Yesterday, I gave a crazy illustration of a company deciding between two product alternatives, one which would give the customers a short lived good feeling but which would be very costly for the company to produce and would damage the health of the users, and another product that would be cheaper and result in a lot of monetary and customer health benefits but was harder for the customer to use.
Of course, this is a ludicrous example, and the decision of management should be obvious to not choose the more risky and costly Option A. They shouldn’t even be wasting their time discussing such options, and yet, this is exactly the type of choice that sin offers each one of us every time we are tempted, isn’t it? Why do we even spend time considering sin, with all of its negatives? If we really were able to know and quantify the costs and compare them to the benefits of obedience, choosing sin would seem to us just as ludicrous as choosing Option A in the example. Only because sin can give a momentary pleasure, or someone else is doing it and suggesting we do it also, only because we are deceived or ignorant about the consequences of sin and rewards for obedience do we even consider sin at all. We choose sin because there is usually a pleasure associated with it, albeit fleeting, yet the consequences are hard, and those that suggest we do it are not at all looking out for our best interests.
The real cost of sin is the difference between the obedience option and the sin option. A big positive minus a negative, or rewards plus the avoidance of negatives, results in an even greater net benefit. Thus, the rewards for obedience are even greater than the rewards themselves. A good way to think of it is Choice A (sin) results in a loss of one million dollars (A= $-1,000,000) whereas Choice B (not sinning) results in a gain of one million dollars (B=$1,000,000). The benefits of not sinning over sinning is represented by the formula (B-A) = $1,000,000- $-1,000,000 = $2,000,000. Thus, we stand to gain two million dollars in this illustration by obedience compared to the alternative of disobedience.
I realize these are over simplistic analogies, but the point I am making is that these are very real tradeoffs we are making when we choose sin, and I believe most of the time we are completely ignorant of what the true costs, both of negative consequences and lost benefits, of sinning really are. I believe that if they were spelled out to us every time we were tempted, we would find it much easier to say “No!” to temptation. Therefore, I believe it is critical for each one of us to think through what might be the real consequences for disobedience and what might be the real benefits for obedience. THINK! Think long and hard about this. Make a list of all the pros and cons of sin and all the pros and cons of obedience. If you are having difficulty doing this, ask the Lord to show you what are the pros and cons of doing the sin you are contemplating. We have to get good at truly counting the cost before we sin, rather than realizing it with a sickening, sinking feeling once the consequences start tumbling our way and we feel like we have just jumped off a cliff with no way back.