Soy Sauce & Sin

My wife Jennifer enjoys Chinese food. I know that Chinese food can always be a solid contributor to a date night that blesses her.

Recently Jen made some for supper. Do you like soy sauce on your Chinese food? Our family does. "Liquid Salt" is a big part of any Asian cuisine served at our table.

Our youngest Micah (age 3) hasn't quite got the handle on "a little" soy sauce. If Jen and I aren't careful, Micah will grab the small glass bottle and drown his entire plate in black liquid salt.

This last time Jen served Chinese food Micah did great...kind of. I've been coaching him to do two quick dashes on his food. Micah, eyeing me all the way, carefully applied two short pours on his food.

Success! The moment I started to compliment him on his effort he reached up his other hand with the small red cap in it, and licked the cover!


Uggghh...so close to obedience. It got me thinking about communicating God's Word to teens and the realities of sin.

How many times do we share Biblical guidance and give students the sense that the ultimate goal is an outward behavior -- like two proper dashes of soy sauce?

How many times do we fail to acknowledge the old nature's desires to lick the cap?

As we seek to shepherd students, it seems important to recognize the old nature and putting off the old self (Eph. 4:20-22) and then putting on the new self (Eph. 4:23-24), which leads to instructions on godliness in His life and His freedom (Eph. 4:25-32).

Yes, we desire godliness in lives of the teens we serve! Yes, we know that obedience carries blessing in walking faithfully with Jesus. But no, may we not slip into a religiousity that fails to keep Christ as the foundation of faith and obedience.

Maybe it's just me, but if a teen's understanding of spiritual maturity is outward conformity without the source coming from their relationship with Jesus, then we will raise a generation of Pharisees.

That's a scary thought to me.