Our lives are an intricate system of relationships and exchanges. The currency we deal with may not be shekels and sheep, but each Sunday we come here to do business with God. And too often we go about our business painfully unaware that we need to be reoriented in our relationship with God. I like the way C.S. Lewis tries to communicate this idea through his book, The Screw Tape Letters . But do remember the only thing that matters if the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy.
Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick.
Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one. The gentle slope, soft under foot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. What is a safer road to Hell than being surrounded by that which makes us think we're just fine. Practices that should have been leading people toward God were leading people away from God, and Jesus would have none of it. I remember a family therapy line that had really stuck with me and makes sense in terms of how this applies, not only between God and us, but how it applies in our relationships with each other.