Proverbs 6:27-28. 27Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? 28Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?
One of the dumbest things I ever did was play with fire, literally. My best friend and I thought it would be cool to burn things with cigarette lighters in the woods behind his house. We thought we could control the small fires we were setting in a junk heap but one of those small fires grew out of our control and soon it threatened to burn the entire woods, homes, towns, who knows how far it would have gone if not for the fire department’s arrival.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “You can’t play with fire without getting burned.”? That’s basically what this proverb is saying. The immediate context is about committing adultery, but we can also apply this truth to any sin we might desire to commit.
The logic is simple. No, you can’t carry fire next to your chest without catching your shirt on fire. No, you can’t walk on hot coals without burning your feet. And NO you can’t play around with sin and it not hurt you.
The burning here is not God’s punishment for sin, but the corruption of our character through the choices that we make. The natural consequence of playing around with sin is that we lose ourselves in that sin. We become enslaved to it. Our integrity shrivels up and dies over time. Our character crumbles.
Simply put, when we burn inside for sin, we will burn our insides. James will say something similar when he connects our unrighteous words to the fires of hell:
James 3:6. And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.
James sees an inner man that is on fire with the flames of hell itself. How does such a thing happen? It happens when you play with fire. When you try to manage your sin, rather than trust in Christ.
Our savior, Jesus, is the only person who never carried fire. He never walked on hot coals. He never sinned. His inner man was never corrupted by his desires or his choices. And yet, on the cross he was burned for us. He took our fire, our hot coals, so that we never have to be completely burned up by our sin.
Through Jesus we are gloriously forgiven and we are being gloriously transformed in our inner man into the likeness of Jesus. Our Father uses all things for our good to conform us to Christ. Even our sin. For where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.
But such grace should never be the excuse for increased sinning, rather grace must become the power to quench the fire of sin’s temptation in our hearts as we allow Christ to satisfy us beyond all we could ask or think. We must learn to fight fire with fire. The fire of fleshly desires with the fire of a desire for the things of the Spirit and his love. May the flame of this love burn ever brighter in our hearts.
You: Is there a fire of sin that you are carrying around close to your chest?
You in Christ: How does trusting our union with Christ empower us to fight off temptation?
Christ in you: Think of an area of temptation for you. How can you allow Christ to satisfy you today rather than that sin?
Pray: Father, keep me from the temptation to sin and teach me to trust you as I learn to allow you satisfy me in Christ. Amen.
To Live is Christ 