Bad Company

Bad company corrupts good character. If your eye causes you to sin gauge it out and if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better to enter heaven maimed then to enter hell all in one piece. We may have trouble forgiving but we can also be tolerant of evil. Sometimes in order to live a life close to God we have to live separate from a temptation.

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This could be person, place or thing. Some one, some place or some thing has entangled us in some form of compromise. These things are not evil in themselves. They simply have been the source of some past or current indulgence. Or it may actually be a person we are unable to deal with. Someone who is abusive or knows how to push our buttons .... a perpetually negative, bitter, gossiping or seductive individual. Certainly we should not leave the door wide open for this person to sin against us again and again in a rather lame and misguided belief in forgiveness. Nor should we weakly allow a tempting situation to continue. If we can get out, we should. What do we do when it seems that we cannot get out fast enough?

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All I know is that the scriptures promise that there is no temptation that has seized us which is not common to man and that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can endure. He can provide a way out. We can trust that. His Spirit can give us peace in the interim. He is also a God of justice. He sees every wrong visited upon one of his children. Like the blood of Abel these wrongs call for retribution. And in this world there have been some heinous sin. The blood of Christ speaks a better word .... perhaps there is even forgiveness for Cain .... but not before repentance.