Just One Won't Hurt

The sign in the cookie stand at Subway looked innocent enough. It read, “Just one won’t hurt.” I was waiting in line to pay for the sensible, nutritious salad I had just ordered when those 4 little words caught my eye and nearly convinced me to buy a cookie. But then I realized that the “Just one won’t hurt” mentality is the cause of my being overweight! In actuality, the path to destruction is laid with statements like, “Just one won’t hurt.”

CS Lewis was definitely on to something when he said, “Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.” Now, obviously, one cookie is not a bad thing. But the destructive things we do rarely happen after just one bad choice. No, it’s usually a chain of bad choices…just one cookie, just one drink, just one impure thought, just one little lie, just one item purchased on the credit card. Those just ones rarely stand alone.

How do we break free from these bad choices? Listen to this advice from 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”

So, if the “Just one more’s” have brought you to an unhappy place in your life, take comfort in knowing that God is ready to supply you with the power you need to break the chains that bind you. Ask him for forgiveness for the bad decisions you’ve made and for the strength and will to choose the right things in the future.