Grizzly Bears and Sin

I remember watching fascinating documentary on a man who tried to make friends with grizzly bears in Alaska. He wanted to enter into their world and protect them so he camped in their habitat. He became known as the “grizzly man.” He believed that he had gained their trust and reported that he had even pet the bears. The grizzly man severely underestimated the danger he was in and began to believe that maybe he had a relationship with them. It all ended rather tragically when he and his girlfriend were killed by the very same bears they thought were their friends.

Sin is a lot like that. We look upon sin (sin is basically giving God the finger and doing what makes us feel good) and it looks desirable, maybe even beautiful, in fact, maybe we can make sin our friend. We begin lying to our self about sin (“it’s not that bad”), then we justify our sin (“this is helping me and I can quit anytime I want”) and then we mistakenly put our camp in the habitat of sin and it ends up destroying us. Paul tells us in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death…” Jesus warns, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin" (John 8:34).

Just as assuredly as the grizzly man was foolish for coming to believe that he had won over the hearts of these bears and could live among them without consequence is the person who believes that he can continue to have warm feelings toward his known sin without consequence. Sin is a master and a killer and is never satisfied with just an inch, or a moment or a day; it wants to take over and enslave. The old saying is that sin takes you further then you want to go, keeps you longer then you want to stay, and costs you more then you want to pay. How true.

There is only one approach to sin; repent and crucify it. It is not your friend. It is not accomplishing God’s will. It is not serving you, you are serving it. It is not benign. Sin is a lot like some of our local restaurants; we gorge ourselves on the tasty food but we know that we are going to pay for it later! Stop sinning!