Is the word “sin” used so much that we become numb to feeling the power of the emotions and effects of sinful behavior? Or has the word become trivialized in the modern world–as in the sense that many people only hear or see the word on the dessert menu describing a “sinfully delicious” sweet?
Some sins may be private–just between us and God. Others impact large numbers of people. Sexual sin often is that latter category. It begins as a private act, but rapidly reverberates through the lives of many people.
Recently I’ve heard of the suicides of two men who apparently were caught up in sexual sin. A speaker I heard recently asked, “If sex is just a physical act, why is its misuse so emotionally devastating?” I don’t even know any of the people involved in just these two cases, yet I’m saddened by the results.
In the New Testament, the writers of the Gospels used the word “demons” to describe that type of sin. Jesus cured those dysfunctional and even evil emotions that had captured a person. It was described as driving out demons.
We have 100 years of scientific psychologists who have developed an entire vocabulary describing these demons. Then we have people who, like me, tend to think too much. Many use scientific definitions and explanations to say we have no control over those emotions. It’s all our mother’s fault as the popular use of Freud’s theories have it.
I suppose that some people are just born evil. For most of us, though, it starts with a simple decision to yield to an emotional impulse. Instead of practicing good intellectual and spiritual control over our emotions, we decide to follow the wrong way.
That’s why teaching Spiritual Practices is so important. We learn how to point our lives toward control by God rather than control by demons.
At times like these I sense a small part of what Jesus must have felt when he looked at the people around him and sighed. They could be living with-God, but they weren’t.
Faith Venture 
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