Not just don’t, but do

Willie Nelson has a Christmas song called pretty paper. It talks about a homeless man who sits there as people pass by him in a hurry to get their shopping done. Then they are celebrating in the comfort of their homes as he sits crying in the cold. There are a couple kinds of sin. There’s the kind that we commit. Like murder or adultery of foul language and such. But there’s another kind of sin. It’s a sneaky sort of sin that seams less in our minds and we easily justify it with all kinds of excuses. James, The brother of Jesus, wrote about it in his book. In James 4:13-17 he talks about boasting about tomorrow. He mentions that we cannot even know what tomorrow brings. In the last verse he says: If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
The second kind of sin is not doing what we know we should! See how sneaky that is!! Like the people in the song. They were in such a hurry to do their own thing that the poor man on the street wasn’t even of any concern to them! When I look at my own life I know that I sin. But how many times have I passed up the chance to do good and was so self absorbed that I didn’t even notice? What if as believers we would ask God in our prayers to make us aware of the opportunities to do good and by asking him this often ,we might recognize these chances as they come? Dear Lord, I have certainly sinned against you in many ways. Help me not to avoid doing good. Help all of us look for these opportunities to serve you and others!
Have a good day but even more important: help someone else have one too!!