The Dreaded "T" word
I remember when I first became a Christian I had a thought in my mind for a moment that I would never have temptations to do anything sinful again. No more thoughts about sex, no more jealous attitudes and no more bad language, whether cussing or negative language directed towards someone. I thought everything would change from that moment on. It only took me walking out of the sanctuary at the summer camp and seeing a good-looking high school girl to realize that my life had a different purpose but my temptations were not going anywhere. The other day at lunch we talked about temptation and the effects it has on our lives. I have been thinking about it alot since then and there are a few comments I want to post to let you know (and holla back I hope this may get some thoughts rolling in your mind)...
1. The real question behind temptation is not whether or not we want to do something evil or sinful.....the real question is, what am I going to do with my life? The point behind this question is that when we ask ourselves what we are going to do with our lives in actuality we should be asking what is God's will for our lives. He desires for us to live lives that are holy, faithful and full of integrity. Wow, how I fall short of that so many times.
2. Real temptation is when you do not know right from wrong. It goes back to the first thought....it is not only a matter of resisting wrong and doing right. It is also finding a way to God's will for our lives and not only our own selfish ways for our lives.
3. I always thought of temptation to be a struggle between myself and Satan, but I want to put this idea out there and let you all run with it.....Could our struggle over temptation have very little to do with Satan and more to do with us following God's plan for our lives?
These are just some thoughts that I had over the last couple of days. If these are things that I should have known from VBS and just missed then please feel free to punk me and let me know that. The only way I will learn is to put these things out there and it is nice to have a group that I could do this with.
God bless each of you and my prayers are with you.......
posted by Casey Cockrell at 11:15 PM
3 Comments:
Great response fre$h and holla to my ramblings at 2 in the morning.
10:52 AM
this is great i love you guys im gonna take all this stuff up and call it sermon #2
also i would just like to add this little tid bit...the reason i struggle with sin so much is simply this...
as much as we talk about how sin is bad, bad, bad we never get to heart of the problem...the reason we are tempted is because we find gratitude and enjoyment however large or small from sin...this idea is hardly ever addressed from preacher, teachers, or other leaders that i have come into contact with.
i think that is it important to not only realize that we sin and its wrong but we also must get to root of why we do it and why we are tempted. the problem is the fact that we enjoy sin and that just flat out sucks...the beauty is that we enjoy Christ much much more and that is in a word amazing.
the trick is to not get pulled down by our sins but lifted up in Christ (i know that pretty clicheish but i couldnt think of a better way to word it)
12:30 PM
what does hedonistic mean and by the way i didnt know i was being piper-esque but of course you know he got that idea from me so i would like for you to refer to is as fatesque
7:14 PM
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