Articles
Abounding in His Steadfast Love
A scorpion was walking down a riverbank trying to figure out how to reach the other side. After some time, a fox walked by and the scorpion asked, “Could you please swim me across this river on your back?” The fox refused saying, “No. You’ll just sting me and I’ll drown.” The scorpion replied, “But if I do, we’ll both die.” After some deliberation, the fox relented to the scorpion and agreed. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the fox. As they began sinking, the fox cried, “Why’d you do that?! Now you’ll drown too.” “I couldn’t help it.” replied the scorpion, “It’s my nature.” If mankind is the fox, then sin is the scorpion because the nature of sin is death (James 1:14-15).
The world is sinful and contrary to God’s ways. 1 John 2:15-16 reads, ”Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” The world wasn’t created sinful. When God made everything, He proclaimed it good. Then, sin corrupted the world because of Adam and Eve’s choice. After that moment, sin was the world’s chosen new master. You cannot worship more than one master (Matthew 6:24). Thus, if you desire the world you don’t love God and will feel the sting of death.
If sin is death and badness, how can a person overcome it? God and His love. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Despite being His enemies because of sin’s corruption, God sacrificed and resurrected His son for our sake. He conquered death, so we can abide in Him and love as He loved us (1 John 4:10-17). 1 Corinthians 13:3-7 reads, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
God’s children are called to be like the fox to the world. We are to help carry those who have chosen the way of the scorpion to cross the river of life that God supplies. Having hope in God and love does not mean we are to be naive. We will face trials and get stung sometimes, which will hurt. Some of them may even decide to turn back. But with God on our side, we will not die. He will protect us, so we can do our best to glorify Him. 1 Corinthians 15:54-58 tells us, “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
