My cousin died last week.

He took his own life.

In prison.

He’s my third cousin to die by suicide.

I never knew him. I just found out about him a year ago. As you might guess, my extended family is very broken. We all grew up without God, and the effects of that are evident in the string of broken lives.

When I heard he died, I immediately thought of James 1:15:

Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death (James 1:15).

Sin is deadly.

Literally.

That’s what James is warning about, I think. Sin can literally lead to your death, just as it did for my cousin.

If you don’t believe James, just listen to cable news! The deadly consequences of sin are evident in every report of gun violence, spousal abuse, war, assassinations, and opioid epidemics.

Yes, sin has spiritual harms, too. But we shouldn’t spiritualize passages such as James 1:15 unnecessarily.

Sin can lead to death. Parents, teach that sobering lesson to your children. One day it could save their lives.