The Foxes That Spoil the Vineyard

Have you ever dealt with someone who was attempting to justify their sin?  Or perhaps you have been guilty of it.  I know I have done this.  It’s a way to try and dismiss what you are doing as “not that bad” or “not as bad” as what someone else does.

The problem is we put sins on levels.  We try to categorize them.  We consider one sin to be worse than another but God’s Word makes it clear that sin is sin.  Lying is just as sinful as murder.  God doesn’t look at sin in the flesh like we do.  He welcomes home the murderer just as much as the 4 year old who is willing to surrender their heart to Jesus.

The problem is that in our justification of our “little pet sins,” we are doing more spiritual (and possibly physical or emotional) damage than we think.  In Song of Solomon 2:15 we read, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.”

You see as a believer we have a vineyard blooming with potential that is, our life.  So when we allow foxes, those sly and slinking creatures to enter into our vineyard, over time they begin to ruin what God has planted. 

As little sins nip at us, it chips away at our relationship with the Lord.  But we don’t always see that and so we think we are okay.  Yet little by little, moment by moment it cuts away until there is nothing left.

What are the “little foxes” that are attempting to ruin your vineyard?  Several years ago I found that watching movies on the women’s channel “Lifetime” was ruining my vineyard.  I tried to justify what I was watching, it was only entertainment and sometimes there were some really good true life movies on.

However the reality is that many of those movies also elevated adultery, murder and fornication.  I came to realize it was affecting my thoughts and my views and they weren’t biblical.  So I made a decision to catch that fox and trap it.  I stopped watching the Lifetime movie channel entirely.

I did this for well over five years and only recently have I begun to reintroduce that channel into my life but only when I know it’s a decent movie and most of the time it does mean one that is based on a real life event. 

That moment in time, although it seems like the focus was on a particular channel, was really about shaping my view of television and what I would allow into my heart and mind.

Those foxes can be any number of things.  It could be music, friendships, gossip—oh the list could go on and on.  The important thing is that don’t try to minimize what we think is the small stuff, because it is the foxes that can spoil the vineyard.

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