Putting Lipstick On A Pig

Good Morning,

Friday once more. How could we get more Fridays? My coffee this morning is Door County Cherry Crème.

Acts 17:30(NLT)

³⁰ “God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him.

I had the great experience several years ago to hunt wild boar with a friend of mine. We were both blessed to take home a big old boar. It was a guided hunt. We were warned by our guide just how dangerous a boar could be, especially when wounded. Once my boar was shot and I approached it I could not get over just how mean and ugly it looked. It now rests on the wall of my den. Each year at Christmas my wife puts a Santa hat on it to amuse herself and have Porky blend in with the holiday décor. No matter how she decorates him he is still one ugly dude. It's like putting lipstick on a pig. They only thing that makes them look better is barbecue sauce. All the decorations or lipstick still cannot hide the ugliness and nastiness.

Many of us look at sin the same way. We try to dress it up, disguise it, justify it or call it by another name. No matter how you look at it, deep down inside it is still ugly and has a name that cannot be changed. Sin is sin. Wrong is wrong. Ugly is ugly.

But, how ugly is sin to God? If we were to review the synonyms of sin, which God moved holy men to write about, we could not remain in doubt of the answer.  It is “sin” (an offense, guilt before God, miss the mark, an aberration or deviance), “transgression” (fall by the wayside, errors and faults with consequences), “iniquity” (injustice, wrong, not in harmony with righteousness), “error” (perversity, wickedness, wander out of the right way), “ungodly” (godless, without fear of God, actively opposed to God), “evil” (corrupt, malicious), and the like.  God likens it to a spot or blemish (2 Pt. 2:13), an illness (Mt. 9:12), and even a death (Eph. 2:1).  God tells us most clearly how ugly it is to Him when He says He cannot even look at it (Hab. 1:13).  Sin is so unsightly to God that He offered His most precious gift to satisfy His perfect justice regarding it (Rom. 8:3).  God does not indulge, tolerate, or “wink” at it (Acts 17:30).

If one puts drain cleaner into a beverage glass, does it turn into a Pepsi or Coke? No it is still poison. We need to get real and call wrong actions, bad attitudes, lust, anger etc, just what it is "sin".

Sin poisons our relationships with others and most of all God.

Colossians 1:21-22 (NLT)

²¹ This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. ²² Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

 

Well I'm not sure that one can ever say enough about the evil people like to keep in their lives and call it other things. I guess they feel they can put lipstick on a pig and it will look like a butterfly.

 

Have a great day.

Marty