Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Monday, August 31, 2020

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."¹

Vernon Eaton, commenting on the book, Ways of the Ant, by John Crompton, writes: "A pleasure-mad society needs to take a lesson from the Sanguine ants and their affair with the Golden-Haired beetle.

"The ants' normal diet is plain, often to the point of austerity, but they love unusual and exotic tidbits and will go to any lengths to satisfy this craving. For example, the Golden-Haired beetle exudes from the base of its golden hairs some secretion which ants find irresistible. So it is allowed to do anything it likes, even lay its own eggs, which soon turn to grubs. So besotted and obsessed do the worker ants become that they feed the beetle with food intended for their own infants, and even with food reserved for the queen.

"Worse, much worse, they allow the beetle to kill their infants and eat them. They even kill their own infants themselves and feed them to this stranger. The beetle repays them with a generous allowance of the secretion they crave.... The end is not immediate. The colony may last two years more, but the end is certain.

"How like Satan is this picture. Promising the 'pleasures of sin' and then enslaving us with our own cravings. The 'dead-end' may not be obvious at first, but it is inevitable."

The good news is that while the end result of sin is eternal death, which is eternal separation from God the author of all love and life, the gift of God is both forgiveness and eternal life. Both are available for all who believe and ask. For help be sure to read "How to Be Sure You're a Real Christian" at: http://www.actsweb.org/christian/know_god01.php

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, help me always to remember that sin always has its consequences and that I will always reap what I sow—even if it is eventually! And I thank You that You have provided an escape from sin's ultimate consequences—eternal death and separation from You—by giving Jesus to die in my place on the cross. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus's name, amen."

1. Romans 6:23 (NIV).

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