The Hot Burrito

*whir whir whir*, I stared intently at the microwave as I watched my burrito cook. The gentle sound of the plate spinning inside and the soft hum of the microwave promising me a delicious and warm snack.

*Beep!!!* It's here, it's ready! I reached in hungrily ready to devour my snack, I took hold of it and quickly took a bite... And then I stopped. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

The delicious taste of beans and meat and cheese rushed into my mouth, but so did the incredible and sudden sensation of heat and burning! I quickly released the bite from my mouth breathing in quickly trying to cool my mouth. Ah! But I was so hungry! I must eat this now. I quickly popped it back into my mouth hoping that the 5 seconds it was just sitting surely cooled it down enough. Lies.

I must have been crazy going in again. But I did, again and again until the burrito was gone. Now my belly was happy but not my mouth. The burrito was so hot and I had so little patience that I gave myself burns on the roof of my mouth. It was terrible, that spot for the next several hours was much more sensitive to what I was eating. Especially temperature of the food.

~

As I was sitting down and contemplating my bad choice of not waiting for the burrito to cool I thought of something. That burrito is often the sin in our lives.

Let me explain myself so you don't think I've fallen off the deep end. 

You see, the burrito that I had in front me I wanted so badly. So badly in fact that I didn't care what the consequences were if I ate it. Hot or not. Burning or not. It tasted so good in the short term, a measly 30 seconds (maybe) and then it was all gone. Almost like it had never been there. And what did that short term pleasure get me? A burned mouth.

Oftentimes we find ourselves lusting after that one sin we struggle with. Porn, women, alcohol, or maybe other addictions. We put it right there in front of ourselves and then we're so consumed with the thought of what we're about to get, to receive, to welcome into our selves that we don't even care what the consequences are.

But what if we thought about that for a moment... what could the consequences be if I don't stop these actions...  

A broken home? A medical condition? An addiction that will strain your relationship?
How about this, something that might strain your faith and walk with God? Perhaps even to the point where you care more about this thing more than you care about God.
We get so blinded by the short term and how good the sin tastes in the moment we completely forget about what the long term consequence may be of our actions and how that affects our lives. Especially our Spiritual lives.

"For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." Galatians 5:17

"For I konw that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." Romans 7:18-20

"But that is not the way you learned Christ!- assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." 

Ephesians 4:20-24

Let's keep that in the forefront of our minds as we go about our daily lives. Are the short term pleasures really worth the lifetime of damage they'll produce?

God Bless,

      Ryan