Doing what we should be doing..

Do you know how to catch a monkey?

There is a story that says in Africa (and India), the hunters use a technique to catch monkeys. They hollow out one end of a coconut and they put peanuts in there (I've also heard bananas…but same concept).

The monkey puts his hand in the coconut and when he makes a fist to grab the peanuts, he's trapped. The hunters will pull a string attached to the other end of the coconut and capture the monkey.

So it is with sin.

We often sin when we don’t let go of the peanuts. We often sin when we do something that we should be doing.

The bible says in 2 Samuel 11: “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.” (NIV)

David stayed home when he should have gone off to war with his men. Instead of doing what he was supposed to be doing, he took a walk on his roof one night and saw a good looking woman taking a bath on the roof top and he wanted her…

The Bible tells us that David sent one of his servants to get her, he slept with her, he got her pregnant, sent her back, found out she was pregnant, sent for her husband and tried to get him to sleep with her, but he was a better man than he was, so in turn David had her husband killed and he took Bathsheba to be his wife.

All of this mess because David did what he wasn’t supposed to do.

That is what sin is like; it makes us do some pretty stupid things.

If we want to have victoy over sin, we must do the right thing, and avoid it like I want my kids to avoid the boys..

Hebrews 12:1-2a says: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…” (NIV)

You and I can have victory over sin. It starts by doing what we are supposed to do—looking to Jesus for Help—and letting go of the peanuts!