Monkey Business

I remember reading years ago about how in Africa they trapped monkeys for the local zoo’s.
They would take (at that time) a hollowed out gourd, cut a hole just large enough for a monkey’s hand to slip in, and inside of the gourd they placed a sweet treat the monkey’s couldn’t resist. The kicker was that when the monkey seized his prize and then trying to pull it out from within the gourd with it in his clenched fist, the opening in the gourd was too small to allow this. He was trapped!
All he had to do was “relinquish” his cherished trophy and he would not have become another prisoner in a zoo.

To me this entrapment, becoming ensnared in a believers life is clearly evident to me when we tenaciously cling to our pet doctrine/s, teaching, personality, or whatever else has become more attractive to us than simply wanting to BE wholly His!

Isn’t that what His spirit was pointing out through our brother Paul, “The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me! I promised your hand in marriage to Christ, presented you as a pure virgin to her husband. And now I'm afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ.”

Rich