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Key Bible Verse: You are storing up terrible punishment for yourself because of your stubbornness in refusing to turn from your sin (Romans 2:5).Bonus Reading: Romans 2:1-16

In life, my cousin and I had the same first name. In death he bore a lifestyle foreign to me. His Louisiana funeral was an odd combination of backwoods country and uptown flashy modern sensuality. Standing in the chapel, I gazed on the feather boa and negligee intertwined in the leaves of a tree sitting next to the urn containing my cousin's ashes. I learned that the negligee was his favorite clothing.

In my mind I saw a small six-year-old boy struggling for acceptance from an estranged father and an absent mother. Personal pain and psychological babble had prevailed over the years.

During the funeral, I listened to my cousin's gay and straight friends lament his passing, always pointing a finger of blame at that great, silent killer among us, AIDS.

In the silence that followed, one of my country relatives, face reddened from the watermelon fields, stood shakily and cast a rueful eye on the assemblage: "Weren't nothing that snuck up on him in the night that killed him. Were his lifestyle. It were his choice. Can't blame God for this one, folks. The fruit of his choices were death!"

—Bruce Hennigan in God's Man

My Response: The relative's remarks weren't politically correct, but were they true?

Thought to Apply: Picture mankind as a bad dog. He wants to get away from God, his master. Therefore, God simply lets go of the leash.—FRANCIS SCHAEFFER (scholar)

Adapted from God's Man (Kregel, 1998) by permission.

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

I admit, Lord, that I deserve Your wrath. Thank you for providing a way for me to be made right with You through faith in Your Son.

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