The smallest deed

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention. (John Burroughs)

Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace. (Romans 6:12-14)

Do not let - those three words probably go unnoticed, but they carry such a significant meaning. So many times, we excuse sin in our lives because we say we 'could not help it' or that it 'just took me by surprise'. The moment of temptation is not unnoticed - it is undenied! We LET sin have its way - we give it access. The way we choose to live today will influence how we live tomorrow. The more we LET things into our thoughts that should never have had any inroad, the more those thoughts will taunt us, multiply in number, and eventually control the way we behave. 

Do not let our minds, bodies, or spirits be filled with the things that will eventually lead to death and destruction. Some will say, "Well, it was such a little compromise, I didn't ever think it would matter all that much." Let me be the first to admit - the SMALLEST of compromises eventually becomes the greatest of issues we have to deal with later on! Let it have ANY inroad, and sin will find a way to take over! As Burroughs pointed out, the SMALLEST deed is better than the greatest intention. We might tell ourselves that we will not give into that temptation the next time it comes, but if all we do is 'intend' to defend ourselves from its influence, we are fooling ourselves.

The intent needs to be backed by the DEED. The first step AWAY from sin is to actually take the first step to resist it. That first step leads to the next and eventually, the pattern of sin is broken. We LET sin have an inroad, not all at once, but step by step until it eventually has a foothold that is stronger than we'd like to admit. The way OUT of sin is to make the SMALLEST of steps in the opposite direction. We break free one step at a time. Too many times, we think our way out of sin is simply a 180-degree shift. Truth be told, it is more like a 5-degree, by 5-degree, by 5-degree, until we hit 180-degree shift!

Sin's inroad is not always easily identified, but when we elicit God's help to disclose where that inroad began, we see a steady 'track' of ALLOWED actions that lead up to where we are right now. The more we retrace those steps INTO sin, the more we see where we can take specific actions to change the path we take when faced with that temptation again. Degree by degree, step by step, moment by moment - we change the trajectory of temptation! Take the first small step in the right direction and it will be followed by the next. Just sayin!