Supposedly, most accidents occur either in, or relatively near, home.  That’s rather intriguing, since most people feel safer at home than almost anywhere.  The truth is, no matter how much attention is given to safety, wherever one might be, there’s no way to completely avoid all potential danger in this life.  When every possible safeguard is taken, any number of possible dangers still exists.  There’s always the unforeseen.  That’s why people buy all kinds of insurance policies.

Since some danger is a reality that we have to live with virtually all the time, how much danger becomes too dangerous?  Obviously, we must resign ourselves to living with some risk, but how much is too much?  Where should we draw the line?  Different circumstances will dictate different conclusions.  But a rule of thumb should be to take as little risk as possible.  Don’t be careless.  Only a small percentage of the contents of rat poison is actually poisonous, but that little bit is deadly!  A foot of water isn’t very deep, but it’s enough to drown in!  Being too casual about how much danger you allow yourself to be exposed to can lead to utter disaster.

Nowhere does this principle have greater application than in our spiritual life.  Paul made a basic statement to this truth when he said, “Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22  KJV).  He did not say to simply avoid all evil.  He instructed us to avoid even the “appearance” of evil.  The translation by Knox renders this verse: “Rejecting all that has a look of evil about it.”  If we will diligently avoid “all appearance of evil,” then we will be much less likely to find ourselves actually involved in evil situations.

Of course, we’re talking about sin.  Sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2) and can lead to our ultimate spiritual death (Romans 6:23).  Sin is so serious that God sacrificed His Son as our Savior to pay the price for the guilt of our sins (Romans 5:8; Hebrews 7:27; 9:26-28).  If sin is so destructive, then how much sin should we allow ourselves to participate in?  The answer is obvious, isn’t it?  We should stay away from sin, all sin!  We do not want to place our soul’s salvation in jeopardy.

If we start flirting with sin, dabbling in sinful situations and practices, we run the risk of becoming desensitized to the danger that sin poses to us (Ephesians 4:18-19).  We don’t want to run the risk of letting our lives become overwhelmed with sin to the point that God gives us up (Romans 1:24) and let’s us believe the lie that sin is good (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

Simply put, any sin is too dangerous to play with!

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