Month: September 2021

 

I liked how he communicates the “choice” to sin.

Our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.
–Romans 6:6-7

This week we have been breaking down the temptation equation: corrupt desires plus the right bait plus the wrong choice equals sin. The truth is, we do not have any real choice over our corrupt desires; we inherited those from Adam and Eve. We also do not have any real choice about the bait that Satan dangles in front of us. Even if we could isolate ourselves from everyone and everything, temptation would still be there. But we do have control over the third factor in the equation, and that is the choice we make. We do not have to bite at the bait.

Yet many Christians have adopted Oscar Wilde’s way of dealing with temptation. In “The Picture Of Dorian Gray,” he wrote, “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” Want to get rid of temptation? Just give in to it. Unfortunately, many Christians feel like they cannot control their sin nature. But the Bible tells us that the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead gives us the ability to say no to sin. Look at what Paul said in Romans 6:6-7: “Our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.” The moment you become a Christian, those corrupt desires you have are dealt a death blow. They are not totally removed from your body, but their power over you has been broken. You do not have to say yes to sin. The Bible says you have the same supernatural power over sin that Jesus Christ had.

You might be thinking, “Of course Jesus said no to temptation–He was the Son of God! But I am not the perfect Son of God.” No, but as a Christian you have the same supernatural power over sin. Romans 6:4 says, “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Baptism is a picture of the future resurrection of our physical bodies, but that is only a secondary picture. Baptism is primarily about the spiritual resurrection that occurs the moment we are saved. When you trust in Christ as Savior, you die to your old way of living, and you are raised to a brand-new way of life. You are saying to the whole world, “I am through with my old way of living; I am being raised to a brand-new way of living.”

Here is the great news: that resolve has a supernatural power behind it. The same power that lifted Jesus out of that grave is working in your life right now to allow you to say no to sin and yes to God. You do not have to be a casualty on the spiritual battlefield. You do not have to become another notch in Satan’s belt. You can resist the devil. James 4:7 says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

 

This is from Pathway to Victory, Dr. Jeffress.  The same fear that is spoken of in this devotion can be applied to the fear being generated in other areas of our life by news and other media outlets.

1 Timothy 6:10   For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

 

Jesus mentioned three distractions that destroy our relationship with God. First of all, He listed worry. Worry can be a tremendous distraction in your relationship with God. In fact, the word “worry” comes from an old German word that means “to strangle.” That is exactly what worry does–it grabs hold of us and strangles the life out of us. Where does that emotion of worry come from? Here is a hint: I read recently that 92 percent of all the things we worry about never come true. In other words, those worries are lies that come from Satan, who is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). If he cannot cause you to reject God, he wants to distract you from God by wrapping the tentacles of worry around your emotions and thoughts.

Satan has a second distraction that he uses, and that is riches. You might be thinking, “At least that does not apply to me. Of all the things I worry about, having too much money is not one of them.” You might want to think again. It is not only having too much money that can be a distraction in your relationship with God; having too little money can also be a powerful distraction in life. You are probably familiar with Matthew 6:24: “You cannot serve God and wealth.” What most people do not realize is that Jesus was not preaching to wealthy people here. In the next verse, He said, “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Jesus was speaking to people who were worried about where their next meal was coming from, and He was saying, “You need to understand that this overconcern about money can strangle out your love for God.”

Two thousand years later, not much has changed. Most of us are not concerned about having too much money; we are concerned that we do not have enough to take care of ourselves and our families. Businesses spend hundreds of millions of dollars to feed that fear. We are told that unless we have accumulated millions of dollars by the time we reach age sixty-five, we are destined to eat oatmeal the rest of our days. Or that unless we take out an expensive nursing home policy, we are destined for bankruptcy in our senior adult years. Or that unless we set aside thousands of dollars every month for our future children’s education, they will never get a good job in life. Yes, there is good, sound financial planning that we ought to engage in, but when it is rooted in the paralyzing fear that we are not going to have enough, it becomes a distraction from serving God. A concern for money is an enemy to our faith. Paul said it this way in 1 Timothy 6:10: “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”