Believe It or Not.


The biggest battle that believers find themselves in is not a fight against the devil...rather it is the battle with self from within.

The central point in temptation is from within and vividly described in James 4:1-3. If we understand this passage, we will have found a key to preventing and resolving conflict.
"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."
This passage describes the root cause of giving in to temptation: Temptation's strength comes from fleshly desires within us. When we feel we cannot be satisfied unless we have something we want or think we need the desire turns into temptation and temptation turns into a demand. We then fulfill that demand by giving in to the temptation because we are now more sin-conscious than God-conscious. If the desire is to be fulfilled by another person and he does not fulfill it then judgement and condemnation set in and we manipulate and deceive to get our way. Temptation arises when desires grow into demands that are difficult not to give in to.

What if people would simply renounce fleshly appetites and decide to respond to temptations in the power of grace? Grace cannot reign can't when we are bound by the law gospel. In order to break free from the pattern of breaking the law we need to understand the workings of the Law and it limitations, and the workings of Grace and its limitless empowering ability for us to live righteously. When faced with temptation, we tend to focus passionately on trying not to give in to it.

This may work for a time but, eventually we succumb to it because in focusing on the temptation and spending our energy on trying not to give into the temptation we lose focus of Jesus and grace's power to overcome. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DO NOT FORSAKE THE ASSEMBLING OF YOURSELVES TOGETHER! by David Yeubanks

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together" (Hebrews 10:25), is a common verse cited by Christians who believe that if you're not attending weekly meetings or plugged in a church denomination that you are somehow out of sync with Scripture and, for all practical purposes, "backsliding". Some refer to the out of church crowd as rebels, or the walking wounded and this verse is often given as the prescription. But is "attending church" really what the author of Hebrews had in mind here? YES THE BIBLE SAY’S NOT TO FORSAKE THE ASSEMBLING TOGETHER? NOTICE IT DOES NOT SAY DO NOT FORSAKE THE "ASSEMBLY" OR CHURCH BUILDING. First of all, it is essential that we understand the meaning of the word "church" as it is used in the Bible. These comments, while being historically and biblically sound, are not meant to suggest that Christians should not meet together, share fellowship, pray or preach the Word of God. If that is the conclusion
Read more

A Bloggers Take on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" and "Hell".

Image
HAPPY DADS AND THE HORRORS OF HELL by Jeff Turner Jonathan Edwards once said the following words: “Reprobate infants are vipers of vengeance, which Jehovah will hold over hell, in the tongs of his wrath, till they turn and spit venom in his face!” Elsewhere, Edwards asked the question: “Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell?” Now, a bit of clarification: Edwards is not referring to God when he speaks of the “believing father in Heaven”. Rather, he is speaking an earthly father who enters Heaven, while His children are sentenced to an eternity in Hell. One would assume that Edwards’ answer to this question would be something akin to, “Nay! And a thousand times nay!”. Unfortunately, his answer was as follows: “…it [the sight of his children in Hell] will increase rather than diminish his bliss.” To be honest with you, I’m not sure if I’ve ever read more demonic, and putrid words in all of my life. I have a level of respec
Read more

The Abusive Tool of Fear-Mongering.

Image
  Fear mongering is an abusive tool used by religion which cripples and limits one's spiritual growth to mature to the full stature of Christ. The fear mongering propaganda that is used as a means to get people saved speaks volumes about the quality of love used to try and scare people to become Christ followers. The scriptures declare that is is the “goodness of God that leads to repentance.” Another characteristic of  fear mongering believers is that they believe that natural disasters are God’s doing and are warnings or punishment for the sin of sinning people. Their sin consciousnesses has blurred their God consciousnesses to where they see God as the big bad wolf waiting to pounce on somebody for sinning. Natural disasters have happened at different times throughout history. Theses events have been used by money hungry fear-mongers to write books of impending doom, passed of as the gospel by using out-of-context scripture verses to validate the acceptance and sale of t
Read more