She Made Me Eat a Candy Cane!

For reasons I will not go into in this blog, I do not attend a Sunday School class at my church. Instead, I hang out in the 1st through 3rd grade class which my friend Rosie teaches. This morning, my pastor’s son who is about six, walked in late to class and announced, quite huffily, that his older sister, age 17, made him eat a candy cane. He was quite upset. We all teased him and said how horrible it was that she made him eat candy. When we had finished, he continued saying, “Yeah, she made me eat a candy cane because I forgot… because I forgot to brush my teeth.”

Suffice it to say, I was rather amused, as was Rosie and anyone else to whom I have told this story in the last thirteen hours.

On My Cross

A lot of the time, I continue to sin because it feels good or because it’s easy. A lot of the time, I behave in an unacceptable manner toward people. I could chalk this up to human nature. I could realize I’ve screwed up and confess it then turn around and do something else days or even moments later. Or, if I’m honest, I can stop to think about exactly what each sin costs. It’s easy to tell a little lie to someone because it will make life “easier.” It’s easy to do something, to say something, to listen to or watch something and say that it doesn’t affect me. It’s easy to say we’re living under grace not the law and that Jesus will forgive me. But Jesus didn’t just die for the “big” sins in our lives. I believe he died, was buried, and rose again for all our sins and would have done so especially for just the little things. So I’m challenging you and I’m challenging myself today. Each time you want to do one of those “little,” insignificant sins that don’t really amount to huge consequences on earth to think of what it cost Christ on the cross.

Those were my nails
That was my crown
That pierced Your hands and Your brow
Those were my thorns
Those were my scorns
Those were my tears that fell down
And just as You said it would be
You did it all for me
After You counted the cost
You took my shame, my blame
On my cross