[x_custom_headline type=”left” level=”h4″ looks_like=”h4″]Perhaps you are a volunteer of some capacity in your church or community. For example, you can volunteer your time and talent at your local senior citizen’s center, or at the YMCA. Maybe you are involved in helping out at your church in one or more of the ministry departments. But there is something you can never, ever volunteer for. You can never be a volunteer sinner. Nope. You can’t do it. As soon as you decide to love what God hates and participate with sin, you are immediately placed on the payroll.[/x_custom_headline]
[x_blockquote cite=”Romans 6:23 KJV” type=”left”]“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”[/x_blockquote]
Sin has wages that are earned. And according to the verse above, the wages of sin is death. Sin will kill your relationships. Sin will kill your marriage. Sin will kill your business or career. Sin will bring its death and destruction to every single area of your life. You won’t even have to show up to the pay window to receive your earnings. No, at a very strategic time, the forces of Hell will deliver death and destruction to you.
The catastrophic events that occur in Christian’s lives, which are often blamed on God’s failure to love and protect them, can many times be attributed to the fact that too many of God’s people are on Satan’s payroll.
One big problem I see with most Christians, is that they don’t really hate sin. You will never get free from any of the weights and sins of the world as long as you are willing to tolerate them.
In fact, one of the ways the devil works on Christians, is to get them to tolerate sin and compromise in their lives. He accomplishes this by getting believers to question whether or not God really meant what He said in His Word. And this is the exact same approach the devil took with Eve in the beginning.
[x_blockquote cite=”Genesis 3:1 KJV” type=”left”]“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said….”[/x_blockquote]
As long as you will allow the devil to get you to question the standards of God’s Word, you will never hate sin. Satan mocks the integrity of God’s Word, and places thoughts in the minds of people that God is just a big bully, and even that God is telling them to do something that is totally impossible.
And if you will continue to read through the third chapter of Genesis, you will see that the devil then began to try to convince Eve that God wasn’t even serious about the consequences and penalties of sin. Satan said to Eve, “You shall not surely die,” (see Genesis 3:4). But he is a liar. And if you listen to the lies of Satan, he will guide you into a place of compromise with the very things that God says that He hates.
Proverbs 8:13 tells us, “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil….” Until you hate these sinful things just as God does, they will remain your close companions. And these sins will cause you to depart from the Almighty God. The next time Satan comes your way, whispering his lies about sin and its penalty, you must be quick to realize that he only wants to keep you on his payroll.
Once while driving in my car, I saw a lady walking out of a place of business who regularly sang at our church. I beeped my car horn and waved, and her instant response was to flip me off. I mean she was quick with it. She was so good at it you could tell that she had practiced flipping the bird on a regular basis. She stuck that finger in the air without so much as the slightest hesitation. Oh, but you should have seen the look on her face when she saw who it was that she had just flipped off!
On another occasion, I went into a convenience store one morning to get a soft drink. As I was putting the ice in my cup, I noticed that one of the men who served as an altar worker in our church was standing by the magazine rack. After I filled my cup with a drink, I walked over to say hello. As I approached, I quickly realized that it wasn’t Popular Mechanics or Field and Stream that this believer was thumbing through, but pornographic magazines. He, too, had the most stunned look on his face when he saw me.
Then there was the time when I went to the supermarket on a Monday afternoon. A couple in my church was checking out their groceries ahead of me. The look on their face was also priceless, as I placed the divider on the conveyor belt to separate their two twelve-packs of beer and my groceries. Their explanation about having friends over for the Monday night football game just didn’t wash. Do we only love what God loves and hate what God hates until the big game is on TV?
These Christians, just like so many today, are living just like the world. They are in love with the world. They love what God hates, and even if they don’t realize it, they are on Satan’s payroll.
If you are in love with the world, you are carrying a heavy load, whether you realize it or not. It is like trying to run the one hundred yard dash while wearing a fifty pound backpack. And the love of the world is a weight that will cause you to lose in the race of life.
[x_blockquote cite=”Hebrews 12:1 KJV” type=”left”]“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”[/x_blockquote]
We must fall in love with Jesus all over again. We must develop a lifestyle of the fear of the Lord, loving what He loves, and hating what He hates. And we must release all that is hindering us, and get off of Satan’s payroll, and stay off.
