A parable that comes from Haiti tells about a man that wanted to sell his house. Another man wanted to buy it, but couldn’t afford the full price because he was poor. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell his home for half of what he felt it was worth, but with one small stipulation. He would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from the front door.
After a few years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell it. So the first owner found the carcass of a dead dog and hung it over the nail, which he owned, on the front door. Soon the house became unlivable and the family was forced to sell it to the owner of the nail.
The lesson of the parable is that if we leave the devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, and make it unfit for Jesus to live in us.
In our study of the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, we read,
The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)
We are all walking toward life or toward death. We are either headed for destruction or we are being saved. There is no third choice. The cross is the place where we make a decision that will end the old life totally. Everything changes at the cross, we radically shift the direction of our lives. Jesus’ opponents yelled at him to come down from the cross, if he were really God. The visitors from Greece tried to persuade him to leave his destiny at the cross and go to Greece where he would be applauded and rewarded, but he refused.
We can leave no peg for the devil in our lives or we will begin to stink with the fumes of hell.
“Give no opportunity for the devil” (Ephesians 4:27)
Life on Purpose 