It's that time of year where we play outside the most, so naturally it's the time for all of us unfortunate enough to get poison ivy to break out in oozing rashes. If you're the rare person who doesn't violently react to poison ivy, please keep it to yourself. It just makes the rest of us sad. Thankfully, I haven't gotten poison ivy this year. The interesting thing is that the oil that most of our skins react to isn't the plant's dastardly plan to keep us away from it. White-tailed dear actually enjoy eating poison ivy. Rather than being the oil, it is our skin's reaction to the oil that makes poison ivy so miserable. Our body identifies the oil as an intruder and does everything it can to get rid of it. If our skin didn't respond to it that way, the oil would simply come off or be absorbed by our skin with no ill effect.

Our spiritual natures respond to something in a similar way that our bodies react to poison ivy. However, instead of being a seasonal experience, the poison ivy of the soul - that is, sin - is always within reach and looks much more tantalizing. When we embrace sin and act on our evil desires, we immediately or eventually puss and puff up. So many people on this earth are itching and scratching and, instead of avoiding sin, are trying to relieve their itching by dragging themselves through another patch of sin.

Conquering Sin

This does not need to be this way. Through faith in Jesus, we can become free from this reaction to sin. In essence, we get new spiritual bodies. When we embrace our new spiritual skin, we no longer respond to sin with desire but instead let opportunities to sin pass us by. We become immune to the desire to sin and therefore it has no hold on us. The world is still there and temptation is still present, but we recognize that the sin is toxic and that we can find greater pleasures by following God's plan for our lives. We are no longer imprisoned by our desires. Temptation doesn't control us any more.

Because of free choice, we are the only ones who can completely rid ourselves of the old skin. If we leave our sinful nature in the closet, we will be tempted to slip it back on. When we do that, we allow our reactions to sin to take place again.

So, what will you do today? Will you continue to rub yourself against sin for temporary relief or will you leave it all behind on the journey that Christ is pointing you to?