Get Out While You Can
As I travel around country roads in my job as a pastor, visiting the best folks in the world, I get to see a lot of wild animals. Of course I've seen deer and foxes, rabbits, armadillos, opossums and many others.
I guess one of my favorites is the vulture. This huge black bird lives on dead animals. I often see them feasting on animals that have been hit by cars or trucks (better known as "road kill") that lie in the road. As I approach in my car, the vultures slowly lift off and fly lazily to a safe place until the vehicle passes and they can resume their meal. It's amazing that, as slow as they are, they always manage to get out of the way in time.
Except once. One day I saw a vulture dead in the road, along with the remains of some smaller animal. I was amazed. Somehow the bird didn't get away in time.
Let's heed this illustration! So often we slip into sin, snacking on the 'dead' things of this world. We enujoy sin for a season. Usually we realize what we've done, and leave the sin behind, before our lives are ruined. We ask God's forgiveness and - WOW- we have a clean slate. God will ALWAYS forgive.
But sometimes we let sin blind us to the wonders of God's grace. We get caught up in sin and don't recognize the approaching hazards. We forget to hurry back to God, our safe place.
God will forgive. Come home.
