Sinful Desire

Prayer: Lord please help me keep my thoughts ever on you and off of impure thoughts. Lead me safely through the valley of temptation so that I can continue to walk strong in the faith. Thank you for your love and understanding it leaves me in awe every day. Amen

Verse of the Day: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." 1 Corinthians 10:13(NIV)

Worship Song of the Day: Overcome by Jon Egan

Today I want to talk a bit about standing up to temptation and correcting our own fleshly desires. This is a difficult thing to me as it is for most believers. Denying our flesh and resisting temptation is one of the toughest parts of our daily walk. We are constantly deceived by Satan who is very very good at his job as deceiver. Sometimes Satan has to work hard to deceive but most of the time we ,as Christians, make it very easy on him by having our focus in other places than where it belongs, with Christ.

Satan also has an easy go of deceiving us because of a lack of knowledge of God's word. I've said before how vital reading God's word is but I want to let you know that if you hope to defend yourself against the arrows of sin that Satan launches in your direction you better know the word so you can stand up to him with scripture. Our authority comes from Christ who is the living word of God. Not reading the bible would be like trying to fight a war with a water balloon instead of an M16 or using a golf cart with a water gun attached instead of a Tank. Don't get caught in the battlefield without your weapons.

The best part about temptation is that the word says temptation will never be too great for us to stand up to it. If you seek God's heart and resist the devil he will flee from you. Be ready though as you start walking in faith and resisting him cause if he can't tempt you he will try to knock you down with other trials in your life. He will try to discourage you and make you give up or change your focus to some problem you are dealing with in your life and then when you are most vulnerable he will come in and entice you into sinful desires.

We were created by God to worship so if you aren't worshipping God then you will worship something. It could be yourself, video games(guilty before), movies, TV, Money(how many of us on this one), or for the musicians out there how about your gift for music. It can be easy to focus on the creation and not the creator. When your focus switches to the creation from the creator God then you are wrong. Do all things to the glory of God in Christ Jesus.

Helping to control fleshly desire is largely about where your focus remains throughout your day. Is your mind always on the things of the kingdom? Let your mind focus where it needs to be to accomplish a task but a part of your mind should always be focused on Jesus. Its hard to do. I struggle with that a lot but I have noticed that I don't sin while I'm truly focused on Jesus. When my mind and heart wander is when I fall into the trap of temptation. Jesus told us that all the thins he did we will have power to do and greater than that. Well the Bible says that Jesus was tempted in every way and yet he stood up to the temptation because of having the fullness of the Holy Spirit in him. We now have that gift as well and have the power to fight off the evil one.

Fight hard and be blessed. Praise to the Lion of Judah who sits on the throne.

Your Brother in Christ,
Brian