If you raise or have animals, you have flies. Flies are the nastiest of insects. They carry diseases and pester our animals relentlessly. This has been my experience at my dog kennels which is just 100 feet from the house. I do the best I can to control them. I have tried spray. Oh, it works OK, but within minutes, new flies appear. What works best for me is fly paper and fly traps. The shiny substance on the paper gets their attention. The stinky smell in the traps lures them in. Once they land, they are my prisoners to their death.
In John 8: beginning in verse 31, Jesus was speaking to a group of people and said, “If you hold to my teachings, you are truly my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  The people were puzzled at this statement and said, “We have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free.” v.33.  “Jesus answered, Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” v.34.
    We don’t talk about sin much today and no one likes to think of themselves as a slave, but Jesus says here that sin makes us a slave; in reality, to the Devil. Just like the fly trap, sin allures us. We say, I will just go in once; but like the fly, we get stuck. Sin traps us and makes us it’s slave.
    Sin pays wages every day. “The wages of sin is death;” Romans 6:23. Sin separates us from God and leads to spiritual death. Sin will cost you more then you want to pay. It will take you farther then you want to go. It will keep you longer then you want to stay. It doesn’t matter if the sin is alcoholism, lying, cheating, stealing, pornography, all sin has the power to enslave us, and try as we will to free ourselves, we are powerless on our own.
    But slavery to sin does not have to be our destiny. Paul wrote to a young Pastor named Timothy in II Timothy 2: 26, “That they may come to their senses and escape from the trap of the Devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.“  Jesus offers us the way of escape in verse 31, listed above, “Hold onto His teachings and become His disciples so that we can learn THE TRUTH and be set free. If we confess our sins and our sinfulness to God and seek His forgiveness and with a genuine heart, ask Jesus to take control of our lives, God, the Holy Spirit moves into our body. He takes up residence and 2 miraculous things happen. First, our old self dies. Just as Jesus died on the cross and lay dead in the tomb, so our old nature is now dead, and we become dead to sin. Second, because  at our conversion we were spiritually “reborn” (born again), we experience resurrection life. Just as Jesus was resurrected from the dead, so at our conversion, He gives us His resurrection power.  Paul said it well in Romans 6:6-7, For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”
    Receive Jesus today, for through Him we can have victory over sin and freedom from it’s power that enslaves us. Don’t be like the fly who because of a pleasing sight and a compelling smell entered the trap to his death.
Will Longenecker