Abominations

Proverbs 29:27 (link)

An unjust man is an abomination to the just: and he that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked.

There are certain words we don't observe often, especially words that are currently out of vogue. One such word is abomination. It has many applications, and if we stick with the worldly definition (link) we miss out on the depth and character that one would traditionally assign to such words.

A fairly good definition, as I understand scripture, is found here and is "Anything associated with the worship of other gods and any behavior that perverts the lifestyle God intended human beings to live." So the key here is something or someone that draws you away from the lifestyle God intended you to have.

It is an easy thing to miss.

This is primarily because, in the culture we live in, the labeling of something as an abomination is relative. Worse yet, most of us are not trained to recognize actual abominations.

It is an easy thing to dismiss as well.

Recognizing abominable events, objects, or people is fairly well defined in scripture. A fairly reliable list is encountered in Leviticus 18. They needed listing because the children of Israel, who had been freed by God through Moses, were potentially going to pick up the rituals, habits, and mores of the countries they would be visiting, and required a literal listing of areas where they might have emulated their new neighbors. This was a major problem because the neighbors were strangers and were worshipping other Gods.

We have no such list - our neighbors are people we have known our whole lives, people we work with, and people with whom we have relationships. We believers are adopted children of Israel, and thus should be conscious of the need to recognize and eschew abomination.

Thus the potential for Godly change is clear:

Do not emulate the abominations of your neighbors

Note: today's hyper-challenge requires an assumption I have observed to be true - all sinful actions are predicated upon an earlier decision to sin.

Hyper-challenge

• Be mindful of your activities and attitudes today, identifying when you are furthest from God
  

• Recognize the earliest point in your day it began
  

• Identify if a mindset, attitude, or decision you intentionally held or made was asserted at that moment
  

• Recognize the potential for it to have been caused by an actual source of abomination in YOUR life
  

• Remove it