The road most traveled

“Avoid it [the path of the wicked]; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on.”
-Proverbs 4:15

Most of the time, I know it’s coming. I know I’m starting to get angry. Some of the time, I recognize that I’m getting angry and I take a walk or start praying. Sometimes I ignore all off that and lash out.

Afterward, I wonder at how stupid I was. I never get out of a fight with my wife, family, or friend thinking, “That was good. I really stuck it to him!” No, I always regret it. So why can’t I remember that for the next time?

Sometimes we think of sin like a line that we cross. I was fine until, oops, I stepped over the line. I sinned. That’s true in a lot of cases. But I love how this passage describes it more like a road.

I was taking a very long drive one morning, making really good time, when I realized I had missed my turn about thirty miles behind me. Sin can be something like that. The second I missed my turn, I was heading in the wrong direction, but the more I drove, the worse the problem got.

The thought enters our mind, and already we have a problem, but it wouldn’t take much effort to pull over and turn around. It’s pretty easy to concentrate on something else, start praying, or something. But soon it is consuming us, and then we let it out. With anger, it can begin with something very small – “That’s not right! I need to defend myself.” Within a few minutes I am in a full blown fight that I will regret in an hour.

A glance at a suggestive image can lead rather quickly to pornography or adultery. A little shame can lead to lying, just like that! A little ambition can lead you to neglect your family for your work. A little pride can cause you to turn completely within yourself.

James tells us, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (1:14-15). It’s a road, my friends, and it leads to death.

Do not go on that road. Don’t even start down that path. Turn away and walk somewhere else.

The trouble is, the road looks mighty nice at the beginning. At the beginning, when we are really hurt, and our emotions are running deep, and there are just so many things we want and think we need and have to say – that road looks like the best one.

Whether it be birthed from anger, lust, hatred, pride, selfishness, or greed, that looks like such a great road, and everyone is walking on it. And sometimes we even have a just cause to push us down that road – some injustice that needs correcting.

But God tells us that those things are for Him to work out. Our job is just to believe and obey.

Except there’s a problem. We’ve been down that road so often that we don’t really know how to get off. We think we’re turning down somewhere else, but it is just a different road that leads to the same place. We cannot will ourselves out of sin. We are trapped. We cannot stop sinning.

But God succeeds where we fail. Jesus came to earth in the form of a man and died on our behalf. In essence, He took us off the road to death and walked it in our place. At the same time, He sets us on the path of righteousness – His righteousness. By His Blood we are now able to walk it. With repentance and belief in Him, we can walk it.

And that Blood continues to pay our way. Even now we try to be righteous, and we cannot, but every time we stumble, His Blood pays for that too. We can walk to eternal life rather than death because He died for us.