The Poop Cake

Analogy of sin.
One day a mother was trying to teach her children about the danger of sin in our lives and just how hard it is for imperfect humans to avoid it. At this point, the teenage daughter told her mom that they were fine. Sin wasn't an issue. They lived in a nice house and went to church. She has a good group of friends and was involved in her youth group and all sorts of activities. This girl was totally blind to the nature of sin.
Unbeknownst to her children, the mother continued with her illustration. While they were discussing sin and other topics, the mom began baking a cake. She baked and listened with despair as her kids continued speaking in complete denial about their lives. When the cake was ready, she prepared a beautiful table setting, poured the glasses of milk, and bragged about her cake-baking abilities. The mother began to rattle off the rich ingredients and continued to entice her kids' tastebuds. Just as the kids were about to take a chunk out of the cake, the mom exclaimed, "Oh, and uh, I mixed in dog poop!" You can imagine what the kids did next.
This is a predicatable story, but it describes how our outward interests, appearances, status, etc cannot keep us safe from sin. Sin is everywhere. One of the things I've learned in this study I'm doing is that as a teacher, especially, it's so easy to be a part of sinful acts by engaging in "friendly captivity". That means that you think you are joining in something innocent, but in reality it invites sin.( and often times not even on purpose) For example: a group of friends. What do the majority of girls do when they get together? GOSSIP. The year before last I was terrible. I longed to be in the middle of it. It became my entertainment. Last year I decided that I really wanted to be trustworthy. So actually for the most part I engaged in gossip by listening, but I did keep it to myself. OR I disguised my urge to gossip as "VENTING". But I did not play the middle man and stir things up. I found that the more you keep your mouth shut,the more people will tell you. However, this still is not the best approach. Whenever someone dogged out someone else, there was a part of me that began to see that person in that light. And that's just wrong. I've never been real convicted about gossiping and just viewed it an "accepted sin". Until I realized that truly, when you gossip, you are not showing love and respect for one of God's children. Not to mention, for every person you gossip about there are probably ten more talking about you! SOOOO....in my bible group, there are about 4 other teachers who said they struggle with the same thing. I spoke out and said that I want to be the person who people do not go to. You know who I'm talking about. There are some people that you just know you can't gossip with b/c they just won't engage in it. I want to be that person.