Got Any Rats? We All Do!

The post below about the man living with 1,000 pet rats really got me thinking. He claimed that it started out as a food for snakes (I won't even go there), and he couldn't let the snake eat one of the rats. Then before he knew it, he was sick and the rats took over the place. He was feeding them 250 pounds of food a week. They consumed his life. By all outward appearances he was an ordinary retiree. But inside his private space there was another life growing.

This story has me thinking about sin and how it can start out small and manageable, like the little "white lie", and yet soon it grows. Requiring more and more of our energy to manage. Then one day it is bigger than we could have ever imagined. Sin is like that, we allow it a place in our hearts and for years it is manageable, then suddenly, it morphs and takes over our lives.

The truth is we can't manage the sin in our lives and we are even more powerless to eradicate it. But Jesus says I will come in and deliver you from that sin. We have limited the "Gospel" to a moment of salvation where we confess Jesus and our guilt is removed (true YES)....but the Gospel is more, it is the sanctification of our souls. It is the process by which guilt is removed and the rodents are driven from our lives. When we discover a few more have shown up, He promises to eradicate them.

The message of Grace is only complete when we serve it up with a call to holiness. God says be holy as I AM holy. When He calls us to something He will empower us to accomplish it. Some will cry: "legalism"...Legalism is calling you to do something we ourselves are unwilling to do. Legalism results in a false appearance of holiness. Legalism is when I put on a yoke on others, Holiness is the Father calling you to live like your father.

Holiness is simply exchanging our ways for His ways. Jesus wants to exterminate the rats in our lives...but He only does it when invited. In Revelation Jesus says behold I stand at the door and knock...we use that verse for altar calls to unbelievers. However, in the context, Jesus is speaking to believers in a church.

Got any rats? We all do and its time to drive them out!