The Animal's Fury

Sometimes during pro-football games the camera focuses on a single player on the side lines, the guy who just made that great play. And he'll look at the camera and he'll say those two words they almost always say, "Hi Mom!" You see, it's just an indication of the debt that a lot of people owe to the love of their mother.

Six year old Stephen will owe a debt to his Mom that he could never repay. He was horseback riding with her and with his older brother and sister and they were near this ranching town in western Canada. This cougar ran right in front of Stephen, spooked his horse, and Stephen was thrown to the ground. Well, that cougar immediately pounced on that little boy, and his mother, Cindy, leaped from her horse, she grabbed a stick and started hitting the cougar knowing that the cougar would turn his fury on her. Stephen's brother and sister dragged him to safety and then they rode for help as fast as they could. Stephen lived. His mother, Cindy, didn't. She had taken all of the fury of the cougar so that the son she loved wouldn't have to.

It's a pretty incredible love, isn't it? Well, you've been loved like that except the deadly animal that's tearing us apart lives inside you and me. It's that part of you that says those things that deeply hurt the people you love even though you don't really want to hurt them. It's whatever produces the dark side of you, the bitterness, the self-destructive thoughts, the adulterous inclinations, the anger. There is this side of us that we hate. The people we love hate it, God hates it - it's the animal inside. We seem powerless to fight it off . . . if we could have we would have by now.

Jesus named this animal. He said in John 8:34, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." Sin is this untamable monster inside of us and the Bible is very blunt when it describes what this animal will ultimately do to us, "Sin when it is full grown gives birth to death." The wild animal of sin is a killer. It kills our relationships, our self-respect, our reputation, our future, and ultimately it will take us to Hell.

We're like little Stephen. We're helplessly at the mercy of this killer animal except that someone intervened. Someone who loves us like no one had ever loved us. In God's own words in 1 John 4:10, "This is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin." In other words, Jesus knew that you could not survive the fury of the animal called sin so He turned all the fury of the animal on Himself on the cross. He said, "Take me, I will die so this one I love doesn't have to." But the one who died was not a mother, it was the only Son of God. The death He took on Himself wasn't just physical, it was the agony of an eternal Hell.

This incredible rescue could reach you this very day at the moment you put all your trust in this Savior to be your Savior. Have you ever done that?

You know the power and the fury of the animal of sin. It's time you experienced the rescue of the One who loved you so much that He willingly turned the fury of sin on Himself.

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Today's Daily Wisdom is written by Ron Hutchcraft, based on his popular "A Word With You" broadcast (Available in transcripts or RealAudio format.) Ron Hutchcraft Ministries has been on-line with GCN since February, 1996, providing practical answers to real life issues. Copyright Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc.