“Make sure to put on enough sunscreen, Dear Heart. You don’t want to get burned,” my mom said, as I smeared more annoying white goop on my arm. How does this even help? And can’t it block vitamin D or something? I think begrudgingly. I smeared more sunscreen on my chest as I prepared to rush the water. As I waited for the sunscreen to dry I laid back and thought of how the sunscreen would help (and hurt) me…

If you apply too little “sin screen” then it may be hard to block the pressure of saying no to things that would pull you away from God. Too much (religiousness) and it can also block vitamins God gives us. If you put on too little, the devil can pull you away from what you love, by making you get burned. It can allow you to have fun for a little while but can put you out for longer than you would like. Too much and it can make you become “religious.” In other words, it can make you skip a few days conference important for your work because you can refuse to miss a 2-hour service at your church. Sometimes in our quest to get closer to God we get farther away because we adhere to religious rules instead of focusing on our relationship to Him.

We need to know what is a moderate amount of sin-screen. If we did not read the Bible in moderate amounts it can A). make us lose track of what is important and get us off track for as long as we don’t realize it, or B). make us seem to get closer (by following religious rules) but make us get farther away than a cat unraveling a ball of yarn (by not focusing on our individual relationship with God). If we are not moderating our spiritual lives, it can destroy our relationships in our real lives… but if we do moderately balance our spiritual lives, we can learn more than we could’ve ever thought.

1 Corinthians 6:12–“’All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be enslaved by anything.’”— Just because something is okayed by society doesn’t mean that its okayed by God.

“ Through Your Eyes” by Britt Nicole

Sharing Hope for the Next Generation,

Bryce