KINGDOM THOUGHTS - Life's little buttercups!

Buttercup

California was blessed with more than normal rainfall this year. One of the benefits is an abundance of wild flowers. It’s springtime … so flowers are everywhere … we love flowers, especially when they're in their natural setting.

One of the more popular varieties of wildflower is a relative of the marigold, a small, yellow, wild flower better known as the buttercup.

The buttercup has an attractive “poppy” like bloom on a long stem, with small, almost round petals. Its appearance is quite appealing. But the buttercup contains a substance known as glycocide, which becomes a strong, unpleasant, oily irritant when it is ingested or rubbed on the skin. Otherwise glycocide is a relatively harmless substance; it’s only troublesome when combined with its victim’s body chemistry.

Since the buttercup grows wild and is attractive, one might think it would play havoc with livestock. But our dumb animal friends are too smart to be taken in by the plant’s allure; they’ve learned to avoid its charm and the resulting irritation.

Like the buttercup, many of life’s little pleasures have attractive names, pleasant appearances, and sweet fragrances. Like the buttercup, they too have a harmless ingredient called temptation. And, like the glycocide of buttercups, temptation breaks down easily and often spontaneously.

When temptation becomes too great, and man succumbs to it, it always leaves a foul taste in the mouth and most certainly disrupts the spiritual tract as well. They’re only troublesome when combined with a victim’s spiritual chemistry.

The Apostle Paul, about twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, wrote the following to believers in Greece:

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.

1 Corinthians 10:13

Isn’t that reassuring? So the believer has God’s personal assurance. What then does the man who denies Jesus have? Paul answered this question while writing to the Thessalonicans. He said,

[God deals] out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord … .

2 Thessalonians 1:8-9

The buttercups of this world are very attractive, and many are as sweet as honey, but their cost is too high. Some people are still burdened by the taste left in their mouths and many others by the ulcerated sores they've left.

It seems to me that intelligent man should be at least as smart as the beasts of the field and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.