What would you be willing to do for...

A few years ago I purchased a book titled The Day America Told the Truth by James Patterson and Peter Kim. This book is rooted in an entirely anonymous survey which covered topics like morality, sex, violence, work, God, and other items. People were asked to share experiences and answer questions that would fall into these categories. Some of the facts are interesting, some are disgusting, and some are frightening because you realize you fall into some of the categories.

Here are a few of the findings that are disturbing.

13% of Americans see the Ten Commandments as even relevant
91% of Americans admit to lying regularly at both work and home

In the section “What you are willing to do for 10 Million dollars?”

25% would abandon their families immediately
25% would abandon their church
23% would become a prostitute for a week
16% would leave their spouses
7 % would murder a stranger

This makes us a little uneasy, so we comfort ourselves by saying well those are non-Christians. They don’t have any morals. But I think we are kidding ourselves if we think believers aren’t swayed by these same external forces. The other thing that is comforting is that we are fairly certain that this scenario would never take place. Who is going to go around and pay out 10 million bucks to see what people will do? Let’s all breath a sigh of relief.

The scary thing though is that it doesn’t take 10 million bucks. Greed and Lust have so filled our lives, yes even the lives of many of the faithful, that we are willing to throw away so much of our lives for such small pleasures. Families are destroyed because of affairs. Lives are destroyed when people, sometimes good people, bend the rules to make an extra buck. We need to prepare ourselves for these scenarios. We need to commit to doing what is right before we ever face the temptation. If we don’t we make it that much harder to not give in. We need to commit to living a life worthy of the calling that we have received (Ephesians 4:1).