Mama always told you not to play with it!

"Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?"

Proverbs 6:27,28

Sometimes fire can be a very beautiful sight to our eyes. Just think about how romantic it is to sit in front of a fireplace in a cozy living room with your husband (or wife if you're a man - Amen!) and snuggle up together and enjoy the sight of the fire glowing and crackling in the fireplace. Or you could think about how fun it is to go on a camp out with your friends and sit around a bonfire roasting wienies and making s'mores right before you begin telling stories and singing songs and having such a good time.  But even though fire can be athstetically pleasing at those moments it can also be very dangerous.  We see all the time on the news where houses have been burned completely to the ground or a victim from a really bad car accident involving a fire has third degree burns all over his or her body as a result of the fire from the car.  Now I know not all fires are started as a result of someone actually making a conscious decision to "play" with it, but a lot of fires and damages from them do happen from people being stupid and careless when it comes to fire.

As a child your parents or guardian probably always warned you against playing with fire because you were inevitably going to get burned.  You might not get burned the first time you mess with it but eventually, whether you get burned from fire itself or from something heated by fire, you will probably get burned in some way, shape, or form in the duration of your lifetime. I've been burned from lighters, curling irons, steam, irons, and even from carelessly grabbing a pan that just came out of the oven in fear of getting in trouble from dropping the food on the floor when I was helping my mom out with supper when I was younger.  Unless you are a pyro-maniac or something you probably don't enjoy just flippantly "playing" with fire after getting burned as a result of it.

Our parents are not the only ones who try to tell us that playing with fire will result in us getting burnt. The Bible says so too in the verses above from Proverbs.  But the fire that it's speaking about can also be compared to our sin. We see sinful things that look appealing to the eyes and don't seem to be causing a lot of damage in other people's lives or seem "innocent" and "harmless" to us but if we are not careful we will begin "playing" with that "fire" of sin and will get harmfully burned every time. If we would just obey God and His word and apply it to our lives like we should we could avoid having a bunch of "third degree burns" in our life from messing with sin and wouldn't be in spiritual "burn trauma" like those that have "played" with it before us did.  If you see someone walk up to a candle, stick their hand in it, get burned, and be in pain you most likely wouldn't want to wind up doing the same thing.  But when we see someone turn to drugs or alcohol, become not in their right mind, do something stupid, and get themselves hurt or in trouble we don't take a warning from that and think it's OK to do it ourselves because we are the exception? You are not the exception and you will get "burnt" from playing with that sin.  Determine that you won't make the mistakes of others before you and stay away from the sins of this world and don't make the decision to play with them and get yourself burned or worse even killed.

Remember what your parents said about fire and what God says about sin!