I’ll Take The
Pecan,
But Please Remove The
I love
pecans! One of my favorite times of year is the fall when pecans begin to drop
everywhere, candies and pies are made, and my stomach becomes very happy. But
if you have ever cracked a pecan open and eaten it, you may have experienced
one of my least favorite tastes. See,
the thing is, if you aren’t very careful to scrape the entire hull out of the
grooves of each pecan, you might think you’ve just put a spoonful of dirt into
your mouth. The pecan tastes great, but once it leaves its shell, all of the
remains of that shell and its hull must be fully removed for it to be the tasty
treat it has the potential to be.
This
reminds me of what must happen when a person is converted to Christ. A
Christian must consider him/herself “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ
Jesus” (Romans
So, it is a
problem when Christians try to be “in Christ” and “of the world (John
It is clear
that Christ endured the cruel death on the cross so that if we “die to sin and
live to righteousness” we can have our sins “healed,” or forgiven (I Peter