Contemplating Giving in to Sinful Desires? Don’t Go There. - Purity 1193

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning! Today's photo of water cascading down a rocky embankment with fallen leaves of autumn resting on the ledges comes to us from yours truly as I climb to the top of the easy access ledges of Lybrook Falls. Falls and got an up-close look at the falls that I had hiked 2.3 miles uphill to see. Well, it's Wednesday, and I thought that this photo of Lybrook Falls near Manchester, Vermont was as good a way to welcome us to hump day as another. So, here are the— here are the Lybrook Falls. Are they worth the 2.3-mile hike to see them up close and in person? That's a matter of opinion, of course, but the hike wasn't too taxing, and I would say that those who like the outdoors would enjoy it. Of course, some people don't like the outdoors, and some don't like to be challenged, and some don't like authority, so who am I to say it's worth the trip? Hey, easy now. Do what you want. We have free will after all, sort of, and you can do You can pick your own path, but I would have to caution everyone out there that you are not free of the consequences of the path you choose. Life is all about choices, and the decisions we make about our course in life and the relationships we can— we make can have far-reaching consequences and resultant effects that we never intended to cause or take us to destinations we never intended to go. As someone who has made some pretty poor personal decisions in life, I can tell you, uh, that you want to look before you leap and try to be aware of the consequences and think before you act. Yesterday I met with a brother in Christ for our final session of prayer ministry, and as we concluded our session, we both reflected on our perilous journeys through life and how much of our learning was by trial and error. And by making the same mistakes over and over again. How we not only did what was morally wrong or foolish, but how we pushed those poor decisions to the extremes in many cases, resulted— resulting in pain, wasted opportunities, broken relationships, and bondage to addictions. We both rejoiced over God's amazing grace to pull us out of the darkness more than once and to lead us to a place of peace and contentment in following Jesus. While there was little from our dark past that we would encourage anyone to try, in hindsight we both recognize that even our poor decisions had value. We both know now what we should have never done and what happens when you decide to go there. Spoiler alert: if you have a secret sinful desire that you that you ever wanted to try, like having an affair, trying drugs, taking what doesn't belong to you, or hurting someone physically or emotionally, it's best not to give in to those temptations, because even if you somehow avoid immediate negative repercussions from doing so, you never escape their consequences, and they always result in bad outcomes. The damage you do in this world often comes back to you in ways you never expected. Violent retaliation, legal charges, broken relationships, and loss are just some of the possibilities you can face from going there. But perhaps the worst outcome, uh, giving in to sin has on us, besides the initial guilt or shame, is the hardening of the heart and the warping of the mind that sin can do. Giving in to sin changes you. You look at the world differently. The adulterer looks at every person's partner as the next possible conquest. The thief looks at others' possessions as something to steal. The liar twists facts, figures, and circumstances to tell the story they want to tell to hide their evil intentions. Sin is rebellion against God and man, and it eventually separates us from both. A person's A person whose life is defined by their sins will struggle with human relationships and will have a very hard time trying to convince anyone they have a relationship with God. The Bible convicts us with this truth. In Hebrews 10:26-31, the Word of God says, "For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified? And has outraged the Spirit of grace. For we know him who said, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay.' And again, 'The Lord will judge his people.' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And Galatians 5:19-21 says, now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. The implications of these passages of scriptures are that the only hope for life beyond this world is found in our relationship with Jesus, and that we need to repent of our former sins. These verses should convict those of us who are still in bondage to sin to ask for the Lord to help us to repent and redefine our lives. So we can honestly say that when it comes to these sins, such was I before I put my faith in Jesus and repented of them. As in, as in, I turn from them and do them no more. I can tell you about the negative consequences of a lot of the sins in these Bible verses. I can warn you not to go there, and I can honestly say that you can be set free from them by following Jesus. So don't play with the idea of giving in to some secret sinful desire. Instead, turn from the very idea of sin and discontinue the sinful practices and habits that you trip that still trip you up. There is freedom and victory from sin available to the Christian. You just need to follow Jesus and ask for God's help and keep on walking and talking with God to experience it. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference, uh, for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on children. And today's verses are Matthew 21:15-16, and the word of God says, but when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the Son of David, they were indignant. And they said to him, do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, yes, have you never read, out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise? Today's verses fall under the fourth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on children. That fourth point is Jesus accepted the praise of children. Today's verses tell us a great story of how, when, how even the immaturity of childhood couldn't hide the fact of who Jesus was from the children who saw the wonderful things that he did that caused them to call him the Son of David. A term that declared that Jesus is the Messiah. I'm sharing a link to GotQuestions.org to tell you all about Jesus, the Son of David, to give you the ins and outs of that term. But the kids gathered praising Jesus here might not have known all that. They saw the wonderful things Jesus did and the person he was, and they immediately made the connection. Hey, That's the Messiah. And when they knew the truth— knew that truth, they didn't care for dissenting opinions or what any— anyone would think about them. They praised him. And we should do the same continually. Why? Because Jesus is still the Messiah, and his wonderful work is still being done today in our lives and in the— in and through other Christians throughout the world. And His wonderful work will keep right on, right on happening, right on happening until that fateful day when Jesus will return to rule and reign once again. So show your childlike faith and praise the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, because Jesus is the Messiah and His wonderful works are not done yet. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we are sharing from A.W. Pink's The Arthur Pink Anthology, which is a collection of his, um, Bible tracts. Um, and, uh, today's Bible tract number 3 from The Arthur Pink Anthology is on anxiety. And it's a shorter tract, but, um, it's out there. So if you want to know what Arthur Pink has to say about anxiety, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. As always, we continue to share Christian resources to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ in their walk. Um, you know, we've discovered that we can be set free from the sins that beset us as we've overcome addiction to alcohol, drugs, and sexual addiction. And we're currently walking in victory over our lifelong struggle with addiction to food as we currently are on a food plan and being accountable to someone at the Celebrate Freedom Recovery Discipleship Growth Group at Star Point Church. And we've made great progress in several weeks. We're down 30 pounds from where we started, and, you know, I thought I was free then, but I feel a lot freer. Not only am I freed from about 30 pounds, I'm in the best physical shape of my life, and I don't feel so heavy. So, and when we take care of our bodies, we feel better too. So, you know. It's a struggle. It's saying, you know, our spiritual— you know, a lot of people think about Christianity as a spiritual thing, but part of our spiritual responsibility is to be a good steward of the things we own. That includes our bodies. You know, if we're worried about, you know, walking well with the Lord, we should include something to, you know, take care of the flesh, not just saying no to the outlandish sins that are listed in today's Bible verses, but to, you know, shore things up in terms of our health. So we recommend it because we've struggled with our weight all our lives, up and down, yo-yo dieting. And what was the problem with the yo-yo? Well, the problem with the yo-yo is I would give into my fleshly desires. You know, I'd make progress and then say, okay, we're done doing the hard work and getting in shape, now let's go back to our sinful desires of overeating and, you know, giving into the flesh. And guess what? All the progress we had made was lost, and we suffered because of it. And we suffered physically and emotionally. I'd say we suffered spiritually too, because I don't think, you know, sin is— sin is a misuse of what God's given us. And We sin against ourselves when we don't treat ourselves as our bodies sort of tell us. You know, I never knew I could be in the shape I'm in today. But now that I'm here and now that the Lord's given me a measure of self-control, I'm going to do everything I can to be a good steward to what the Lord has done and to continue to, you know, to try to be as healthy as I can, to live as long as I can. So I can share this encouragement to follow Jesus as long as I can. And I understand when we go on this, this path of, you know, Christian discipleship, we might run into trouble. Um, we'll, we'll, we'll have to repent of our sins, and we might lose, lose relationships or things. And, you know, not for nothing, we might run into some shady characters in the body of Christ. That were not so, you know, that don't seem to be the people they say they were. Or, you know, there'll be difficulties in those relationships. But we follow the Lord, we follow Jesus, and we go follow him no matter what we run into. And we keep him at the focus of, you know, what we believe in and what we what we follow. So we forgive other people when they, they make mistakes or, or deceive us. Uh, you know, we have to be wise and discerning in the relationships we have. And I, for one, I'm gonna— we'll do that, um, you know, in my ministry. And but as long as I can, I can encourage people to follow the Lord, we're going to continue to do so. And tonight we'll be doing that, the Celebrate Recovery— well, not Celebrate Recovery, it's Celebrate Freedom growth group at Star Point Church. As I lead a recovery/discipleship growth group on Wednesday nights, and tonight we'll be celebrating the fact that we've been, you know, in existence for 26 weeks as we started back in May. And, you know, people who decided to come alongside our ministry and to walk it out have discovered freedom and victory over addictions. They've discovered, you know, they're living a new life now. And, you know, some people have joined us and walked away. They're not enjoying the new life now, and they might even say something bitter about, you know, our group. Well, they don't do that, you know, they're a bunch of Christians, or what— I don't know what they might say. But if you walked away and you're still hurting, you could say just about anything about me or about the other people there. About our church. And I get that. But I would only encourage people to follow the Lord and do what's right. And when you do that, and all the other stuff goes out the window. Generally, the difficulties we have in the church are started by sin or by pride. And, uh, which is a sin. So, um, but I'm not going to focus on the negative aspects. I'll focus on the good things we can do. I encourage you to follow the Lord, and you do so, I know the Lord will, will guide you in the way you should go, and that you'll experience a life that's defined by the fruit of the Spirit instead of those works of the flesh. When you make that change, you know, peace and joy and love, you know, flow through your life. So we encourage a life of Christian discipleship for a reason. And guess what? That doesn't mean, you know, we stop playing the church game where we put on appearances. This is for real. And, you know, we're not going to do it perfectly, but we're going to do it continuously and try to improve. Uh, it's not about perfection, it's about progress, and it's about serving and serving the kingdom of God and And that doesn't mean serving some dude, or, you know, you know, I'm gonna serve the Lord and I'll do so in whatever environment I can. And the only counsel I give is, you know, the Word of God. Follow that. And if you're not following that, then you're in trouble. Not in trouble with me, but you could be in trouble in terms of your relationship with the Lord. And we encourage you to make peace with God by putting your faith in Jesus and following him. So that's it for today. Um, I gotta work, work, and then go to a growth group meeting. So Wednesdays are a long day for me, but, uh, it's okay with me. Um, you know, I get to do the good work of supporting me and my family and, uh, of, um, you know of supporting others in their walk of faith. So that's, that's all I, that's all I need, and, uh, that's what we're going to do today. So let's, let's pray because we need God's help to do that. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all you've done, and we thank you for the freedom you've given us and for the darkness you walked us out of, and the fact you never gave up on us and you continue to walk with us today to show us that there's more in store when you walk with the Lord. Um, Lord, we, uh, we pray for anyone who's out there listening or reading today's message, that you'd bless them, uh, that you'd bless their prayer request and bless their walk of faith and show them the impossible things that they can do through faith in you. And Lord, for us, we pray as always for you to go before us, open our eyes to the things we need to see, and lead our steps in the way ways we should go. Because Lord, we mess up a lot and we need your help to do things right and to not make mistakes and to not screw things up. Um, I apologize for the language like that, for instance, is a great example. Um, but Lord, we just pray for you to forgive us of that and for you to lead us today because we need your help. We need it desperately. We need it continuously. Continuously. And on our part, we'll try to praise you continuously. Um, so Lord, let's just keep this going, um, because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom and tell other people about the wonderful life that they can have when they make Jesus their Lord and follow him. And Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.