Ripples Ministry

It starts small, unnoticed, beyond prying eyes. Deep within, hidden from light, a change begins. We continue our lives as though nothing has changed – It has. And if we knew what was happening, we would be dealing with it now.

But we don’t.

A cell that was once normal begins to change. We don’t understand all the reasons for this change, but it occurs nonetheless. Slowly, it begins to spread to the cells around it and the change gets a life of its own. We don’t notice it yet. It hasn’t interfered with our lives. We continue as if the world was glorious and our whole lives stretch before us – It isn’t and the end is closer than we know.

Of course I am speaking of cancer and its insidious entry into our lives that changes everything. But I could just as easily be speaking about sin.

Sin starts off in very much the same way that cancer begins in our bodies. It starts off small, unnoticed, and hidden. Perhaps it is a thought that crosses our mind and rather than turning it over immediately to God, we allow it to settle for a moment, to gain a small foothold in our heart.

Galatians 5:7-10 tells us…
“⁷You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? ⁸This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you. ⁹A little leaven leavens the whole lump. ¹⁰I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind; but he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is.” (Emphasis mine)

A single cancer cell turns into many. Caught early the chances of survival are good. Ignoring the signs and symptoms can be disastrous.

Cancer is divided into stages. These stages are a corollary to our place with sin in our lives. Wikipedia defines the staging of cancer in this way – “The stage of a cancer is a descriptor (usually numbers I to IV) of how much the cancer has spread. The stage often takes into account the size of a tumor, how deeply it has penetrated, whether it has invaded adjacent organs, how many lymph nodes it has metastasized to (if any), and whether it has spread to distant organs. Staging of cancer is important because the stage at diagnosis is the most powerful predictor of survival, and treatments are often changed based on the stage.”

Cancer Stage I – This is where the cells are localized and therefore treatment is relatively simple. The affected cells are removed, along with surrounding healthy tissue to ensure that none have escaped detection. There is some pain of course, but treatment almost always has some pain involved.

When our sin is small, such as a thought which we have been dwelling on, treatment is relatively simple. If we confess our sin to God, turn it over to Him, He is faithful to forgive us (John 1:9) and the ramifications on our lives are small. Confession does not come without pain however. We must realize that we have, yet again, fallen short of God’s holy mark for our lives. Unfortunately, too often we do not deal with our sin at this point.

When cancer reaches stage II it begins to get complicated. No longer is the disease process confined to a single place. It has begun to spread. It now affects nearby organs but is still usually treated with great success. The pain for treatment and recovery are elevated from stage I though.

Sin that has progressed passed stage I in our lives is sin that has begun to be acted upon. Perhaps there was someone at work you were thinking about – even though you are a happily married. It begins with innocent flirting and playful contact that may appear innocent on the surface, but in your heart there is something darker driving it. It is sin. It is a disease to your soul and if you continue, it will surely destroy the holiness God has called you to.

Sometimes this can be the toughest stage to deal with. We convince ourselves that we really haven’t done anything yet. We are only playing on the fringes of sin, but realize that this is a lie. Jesus tells us that if we have committed something in our heart that we are already guilty (Matthew 5:27). We still however make excuses for our behavior and this is most often why we move quickly to stage III.

Stage III cancer begins to get very serious. For now the tentacles of the disease have spread to neighboring lymph nodes and are in danger of spreading to the entire body. This stage is much more difficult to treat, often involving very invasive surgery and possibly chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Your odds of survival begin to drop rapidly at this point and you wish you have heeded the warning signs when you first saw them. You may miss work, not to mention the financial and emotional strain on you and those you love. There is still hope however.

Unrepentant sin also mirrors this stage of cancer. Now our sin has spread from us to others. We are now, either directly or indirectly involving other people in our sin. They are both participating and following us or they are the victims of our behavior. Families and marriages are torn apart. Careers are ruined. Works of a lifetime come crashing down. Witness the recent fall of Tiger Woods for a prime example of sin out of control. God can still restore what the locust has eaten at this point but the treatment may be long and painful and the cost high.

Stage IV is serious indeed. It is often referred to as metastatic cancer, meaning that it has spread throughout the body. Often at this stage, our prognosis is poor and death can sometimes be imminent. Doctors will do their very best, but at this point success cannot be guaranteed.

If you wait until your sin has spread to this point, you are in danger of eternal separation from God. We can allow sin to become so deeply imbedded in our lives, that we cannot see a path to change. Of course we have a surgeon, a perfect surgeon that can fix even this. But we need to ask Him to help, for he will not operate without our permission.

The changes will be costly. You will have to turn from all that has become who you are, to be something that God wants you to be. You will have consequences for your stubbornness, but there will be eternal life… THERE IS ALWAYS ETERNAL LIFE FOR THOSE THAT REALLY SEEK IT.

Sin is like cancer in our lives. I hope that you would seek help if you became aware of a problem in your body and if the doctor told you that you needed surgery, you would get it right away. Doesn’t that seem reasonable? Then why, I might ask, can you not ask for the help you need to remove the sin from your life? What is holding you back? Can you not see what this sickness is doing to you?

One thing about cancer though, it is important to get it all when removing it. A single cell can cause the cancer to return – sometimes more vigorously than before. Sin is no different. If you deal with only part of the problem, then rest assured it will be back again – possibly with devastating consequences. You need to remove all of it!

The example I have given here is only that – an example. Sin takes root in our lives in many ways and just as there is not a single type of cancer, there are many different sins that plague us. Give yourself a spiritual examination and ask if there is the tumor of sin in your life. The more honest you are, the better your chance at catching it early and dealing with it while the consequences are small. If it has gone beyond that point then the time to deal with it is now. Don’t wait until a death sentence is handed out. A loving God wants nothing more than to heal you. You simply need to make an appointment.

The Great Physician is just a prayer away. If you are thinking about sinning, drop to your knees and PRAY! If you are flirting with sin, drop to your knees and ask for forgiveness right now. If you are actively in sin, STOP! Ask for forgiveness and be prepared to do whatever you have to to make it right.

Sin however has another stage. It is Stage V and it is always lethal. Once you have passed from this world there is NO CURE. God has warned us that not to accept the free gift of salvation is to be eternally separated from Him and there is no second chance. So, if you have not accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and savior, then do it now.
Go to this page to see how.

And for the rest of you brothers and sisters in Christ. Treat your sins early and often and you will enjoy spiritual health.

Blessings upon Blessings

Tim

You saw correctly. There is no misspelling. Dyed is correct – as in I have dyed some fabric. Which is true. Which is the reason for this blurb. But, you’re saying, what is the corollary between “dyeing” fabric and learning a spiritual truth? I shall do my best to enlighten you.

As many of you know I am the director of the puppet ministry Ripples at our church. But what some of you may not know is that I design and build most of our signature characters. It has been a slow learning process. There is not a place you can go where they teach you how to build muppet-quality professional puppets. Often, these secrets are closely-guarded by those in the business who want to keep their craft and their knowledge to themselves.

So my journey to build puppets has been hit and miss (with a lot of emphasis on the misses.) More often than not, my plans of what I wanted fell short of what I have created. Yet I persist. I read books when I can find them. I learn some of my techniques from professional patterns. But most things I learn are trial and error.

In my sojourn to be a great maker of puppets, I have discovered that the muppet builders used a special fabric called Antron Fleece. This material hides seams and stretches enough that it wraps wonderfully around complex shapes making it Ideal for building puppets. However I must order this material from a single company in Georgia and it only comes in white! All white puppets may be a novelty but in the real world it is color that sometimes drives the characters.

It became necessary for me to dye the fabric in order to acheive the colors I wanted. Like most things so far, I had no experience in dying. I do expect to do things perfect the first time and instantly master any given task. Dying looked easy enough. Just dump some color in water and throw in your fabric, ring it out and Voila! Well, do I have to tell you that it is not as easy as it looks?

My first attempt was a fiasco. I dyed 2 yards of fabric bright blue and followed the directions carefully on the package. I decided to machine dye since this looked the easiest. However, the package did not explain to me that my particular type of fabric does not like to be washed and dried! It came out of the dryer all pilled on the surface! I was mortified. I had only ordered three yards and it came all the way from Georgia! And to boot.. it’s not cheap.

But I made it work. Next time, I promised myself, I would do it by hand. Enter the frog… I next decided to make a frog which required green fabric. I picked a suitable color and mixed the dye bath – even adding salt as recommended. I put in the fabric and began to stir -constantly as the package stated. After about 15 minutes I was tired of stirring. The package said to stir between 30 and 60 minutes – but man, that is a long time! It looked dark enough to me so I took it out. When I rinsed out the excess dye, it was about three shade lighter than what I wanted. Nuts! But I made it work.

Next, I decided to dye some foam pink (for tongues and such) which takes the color very quickly. On a whim, I did some fleece as well. Again I was impatient, reasoning that if this was a little lighter I didn’t care. So I only endured 10 minutes of stirring before I took it out. To my dismay, when it dried, the fabric was splotchy and virtually unusable for most things. Nuts!

This brings us to now. A few nights ago, I needed to dye some dark green fleece for a new puppet I am building. I determined this time to follow the directions to the letter. I placed a lage bucket in the middle of the floor and poured in very hot water, salt, dye and my fabric. Then I got on my knees next to the bucket and began to stir. I didn’t want a black green so I decided thirty minutes would be enough. I can tell you it was a long thirty minutes. My knees hurt. My back ached. My arm got tired of the constant stirring. But I persevered to the last second of that thirty minutes. I carefully rinsed out the fabric until there was no trace of excess left and I put it to dry flat on the kitchen table. The next morning I looked at the fabric and it is beautiful! It is exactly what I wanted and I pleased with the result.

How does this realte to my Christian walk you ask? How does dyeing fabric have anything to do with Jesus? Scripture tells us that we must “die” to ourselves (Luke 9:23-24.) Not literally of course, but we must die to our self-will. That means that God is in charge and we do it His way.

Each time I tried to dye the fabric in the incorrect way, the results were not what I wanted. The same can be said of our Chrisitan walk. Are you feeling unfulfilled, unsatisfied, unworthy or unloved? Perhaps it is because you have not yet died to self. Do you think there are shortcuts to being a victorious Christian? Do you love God but you are still doing it your way and then wondering why the results are unsatisfactory? We have the instruction book. It’s called the bible and if we use it as our directions for life, there will be no reason to doubt that our Father is pleased with the results. And beloved, when He is pleased, so are we.

Can I encourage you today to pick up the directions from God and start making appllication in your life. You will be blessed that you did. Don’t be tempted to take shortcuts and you will finally find yourself doing the beautiful work of God in this tapestry we call life.

May you be richly blessed.

In His Love,

Tim