How far is Too Far

How Far is Too Far?

A wealthy man was in need of a chauffeur so he placed an advert in the local dailies. Three applicants showed up for the interview and on meeting with them he asked them this question.

“How close to the edge can you drive without going over the cliff?” The first man said, “A foot.” The second man said, “A meter.” The third said, “I always try to keep as far away as possible.” The third man got the job.

One of the things that amaze me is that when we are still new in the faith, we are so careful about what we watch, what we read and the places we hang out because we do not want to do anything that will take us back to the life of sin that we were living. We are so careful not to even have a hint of sin near us.

Then after we have been saved for a while we become careless in the way that we live. We try to see how close to the edge we can drive without tipping over.

That’s when we begin to ask questions like “How far is too far?” We no longer want to get as far away from sin as we can, but rather we want to see how close we can get to the sin without sinning and within not time we are in sin and we have all manner of justifications to explain our position.

How many times have you and I found ourselves justifying why we are watching a particular movie saying we are mature enough to know how to sieve the good and the bad?Or maybe we find ourselves constantly with the wrong kind of company but we justify ourselves by saying “we know what we are doing and how else are they to be reached?”

Or we fail to give but we always come up with some fancy story to justify why we have not given. The Israelite's were warned not to get involved with Philistine women, but I guess that did not apply to Samson.

He was the strongest man that ever lived. Was he not the man who tore apart a Lion with his bare hands? Is he not the one who single handed killed 30 men and took their clothes? With the jawbone of a donkey he killed one thousand men.

He was so strong, that at one time he pulled out the city gates and the posts and carried them on his shoulders, surely with all this strength, he must have thought he was exempt from all this “rules”.

Besides all this, he was also not to cut his hair. But the thing is this, Samson is messing around with Philistine women and he is still as strong as ever and soon enough he forgets the source of his strength to such a degree that he willingly tells Delilah the secret of his power and he allows her to cut off his hair.

The bible says he thought he would break loose and escape just like before but it was not to be. The same applies to you and I, the more we try to see how close we can get to the forbidden thing without getting entangled.

Soon we will lose the source of our power and like Samson we will lose our vision and end up a slave of the enemy.

Practical Application ~ How close to the edge of the cliff can you drive without falling over? Only you can answer that question.