SIN IS CONTAGIOUS

As many of you know, prior to coming to Faith Bible Church, Mike and I worked at a church in Midlothian. At that church, I used to write a blog as a vehicle for processing my thoughts on the previous week’s sermon. On Sunday, we read Haggai 2:10-14 in which Haggai asks the priests for a ruling on a question of ceremonial purity. The passage reads:

On the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Ask now the priests for a [j]ruling: If a man carries holy meat in the [k]fold of his garment, and touches bread with [l]this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?’” And the priests answered, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from a [m]corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?” And the priests answered, “It will become unclean.” Then Haggai said, “‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean…”

Mike made the point in his sermon that sin is contagious. An unclean object makes a person who touches it and every work of their hands unclean. As I considered this concept and the passage, something definitely came to mind:

GLITTER.

Yes, you read it correctly. When Mike talked about the contagiousness of sin, my mind went to glitter. You see, when I think of something that spreads easily and is difficult to clean up, glitter is the first thing that comes to mind.

Here’s why…

Some of you may remember back in the early 90s, there was a craze for shirts covered in puff paint and glitter. See below:

 
 
Yes. They were that horrible. And the pictures do not even do justice to their true level of ugliness.

Anyway, Mike was in pilot training at the time, and I got it in my head to make a shirt covered in sparkly, puff paint airplanes with glittery contrails. All this was fine and good until the morning after I made the shirt and I looked at Mike as he got ready for work. Here stood before me a professional military officer, quite distinguished and formal looking in his Air Force issued green flight suit. But what was that on his face? Several pieces of loose glitter.

I remember quickly stepping up to brush them off his face, but as he turned his head, his face caught the light differently. More pieces of glitter. This was not good. More brushing off and cleaning… More glitter. And so it continued…

For weeks.

And from then on, Mike banned glitter in our house.

(Side note: This example is also why I didn’t use glitter as my illustration for the contagiousness of sin in the Children’s Moment on Sunday… Mike never would have allowed it.)

Back to the point. As any mom reading this blog can probably attest, no matter how careful you may be, if you get glitter out for a craft project, you’ll be finding glitter in your house, on your face, sometimes even in your food for weeks to come. I’ve heard it described as the “contagious virus of craft supplies.”

Sin often works the same way. It often disguises itself as something “sparkly” to get us to open the container. It can masquerade as discontentment--“the grass must be greener (and more sparkly) on the other side” kind of thinking. It can also camouflage itself as an exciting alternative to ennui or boredom in our lives. But here’s the thing…you can’t just dab your finger in sin and get out unscathed. Just like glitter, sin gets everywhere. And before you know it, you’re scraping specks off your forehead only to have them reappear at the most inopportune of moments.

I would encourage you to take a moment and look at your life. Is some sin trying to entice you to think that your life needs more sparkle? Are you feeling envious because someone else’s life seems to shimmer and shine more than yours?

Give those thoughts and feelings to the Lord. Talk to Him and ask for His help in fighting and taking control of these negative cognitions (2 Cor 10:5).

And for the love of everything good, DON’T OPEN that container. You may not see it, but the words sin and death are written in tiny print all over the back. The mess will be really hard to clean up, and it will get everywhere.

All that glitters isn’t gold.