Commission and Omission

I'm going to lay off the political commentary for a while. We shall see what transpires in the coming term and pray accordingly. I suggest we start now though with the prayer. 

In the meantime, I have been pondering a few things. Sinning for one.

My father used to say, "You stop sinning by stop sinning." Before you say, "Gee, thanks. That helps" the truth is, it means exactly that.
There are two types of sins. Sins of commission: bad things we do, and sins of omission: good things we don't do.
So, doing bad, or not doing good, both are sin. Robbing a man on the street is markedly bad, to be sure, but so is not helping the man you have seen be robbed.

That being said, "You stop sinning by stop sinning" isn't written better by saying, "You stop by stopping," but "You stop by starting." To stop doing the bad stuff, start doing good stuff.
Its the old thing about 'remove by replacing.' You have to put something in the hole you have made. Otherwise all you have is a hole, which can quickly be filled, usually with something bad - since whatever sin it was that you had in said hole in the first place seemed to fit so nicely, sin usually falls right back in without an ounce of effort. Filling that space with Christ will keep the sin out. 

Nature abhors a vacuum; so does God.

But if you spend so much time with the poor, homeless and hungry and attending to them, becoming friends with them, that you find in retrospection that you didn't have time to complain, argue, hate or lie.
Idle hands make for... well, you know.