Tag: Desires

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Power over ourselves.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.” Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭16‬-‭17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Earlier in this chapter, the Apostle Paul writes about freedom. Freedom from, but just as important, freedom to. When Paul teaches the Church about sin, he digs deeply into the causes, the origins of our sin. Paul uses words like satisfy, nature and desires. These are evidences of urges and cravings from within!

Paul then moves from talking about freedoms from sin to having power over our sin. The key; the power of the Holy Spirit! Not just letting the Holy Spirit take control, but gaining the edge over disordered desires that plague our lives. Paul also gives us the results of these bent desires. Think about this, these are desires that drag us down, yet we not only want to see them as helpful, but we actually believe they will give us a better life, tricking us into thinking they can fulfill us! The summary – that’s all a lie!

Paul writes the truth of where our own cravings and desires take us. Paul writes, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these” (Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭19‬-‭21‬). Some might say, “well that sounds like a regular weekend experience for me!”When we feel these intense influences coming from within our heart, we blindly hope that we can avoid the effects of our decisions – hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, and envy! Our lives, as well as our relationships get WORSE, not better. And, the more we feed our flesh or old-man/old-ways, with these disordered cravings and desires, the more these stubborn cycles and traps of addiction turn us into mental-health pretzels, taking over our life! God warns us against giving into sin, not just because it’s wrong, but also because it is absolutely destructive to us and those around us.

Here’s the craziest part of all – our conscience tells us we’re wrong. This God-given early warning system starts screaming in our head, and we just override it! Continually and consistently ignoring the siren in our soul leads to coldness and lack of sensitivity in our heart. At first we want to act out these desire in secret, hiding and ducking any chance of attracting the attention of a spotlight shining the truth. But at some point the light no longer bothers us! Guilt becomes ineffective and eventually we want to join with others of likeminded, bent and broken desires to completely dull any possibility of stopping our pursuit of doing whatever it is we want. It is quite easy to justify anything at this point.

We’ve joined a tribe of those who have not only chosen similar desires, but for the sake of solidarity, they celebrate them! No matter how innocent the beginning, no matter how one found themselves opening the door to these deadly sins, there is no way to stop them until they have destroyed our entire life. The choice becomes put them to death by the power of the Holy Spirit, burying them with Christ’s mercy and grace OR let them drag our soul through the living hell of consequences that are inescapable. Even with the forgiveness and power to kill our disordered desires, God never promises that we can sneak away from the consequences. Continuing in bad behavior and continuing to do so with a bad company of friends will 100% yield horrible results – it is just a matter of time. You know this is true! We all know this is true.

Prayer

Dad,
There is regular suffering that everyone eventually goes through. Then there is godly suffering, endured because of living Your truth, which is hard, but brings such amazing fruit. But finally, there is suffering because of sin, and selfishly making bad decisions that yield awful consequences and results. All are painful. But our own actions, weakly justified, leaves us with unimaginable pain because we actually thought we could get away with it. But oh what joy and freedom in confession, repentance and acceptance as well as the consequences when the Holy Spirit moves in with power to resist, heal and overcome! Help us drag our sins and desires out into the light and allow you to both free us and give us power to live like Jesus.

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Satan’s City?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“Write this letter to the angel of the church in Pergamum. This is the message from the one with the sharp two-edged sword: “I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan’s city.” Revelation‬ ‭2‬:‭12‬-‭13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Satan has a city? Well, not exactly. Where is Pergamum? Today it’s in Turkey, and it’s just tourist ruins now. But back in the first century it was the height of Rome’s idol worship with massive statues and temples. The “seat of Satan” was a reference to the center of idolatry, as Pergamos practiced sun worship, which originated from Babylonian idolatry. It is a symbolic way of describing the city’s spiritual atmosphere and the strong influence of paganism and emperor worship, which made it a place where Satan’s power was particularly evident.

Who would want to be known as Satan’s city? It’s not exactly what you’d put on the city’s welcome brochure. We think of our own cities and wonder what idols, what kind of worship takes place there. Cities like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York or New Jersey, maybe even Portlandia remind us of pockets of power, money, lawlessness or even anarchy! It seems as if Satan has plenty of thrones scattered around the Divided States of America. There are plenty of religious statues in the U.S., and some of them are touch points back to ancient idols – the Hindu goddess, Kali, Baal, Athena, and Saraswati.

There are far more human behaviors that are unashamedly displayed proudly in parades and festivals all across the county – most of which are sexual, occult, or just pure demonic. There are plenty of Americans that are quite proud of their wayward “sinful” ways. John records that the evil IN the city wasn’t God’s only concern. There were assistant deceivers like Balaam – using women (daughters of Moab) to entice the Israelite men to knowingly eat meat sacrificed to idols combined with some manner of sexual infidelity. These men had proactively corrupted others, encouraging them to sin, relishing in the fact that they were destroying human souls, their families and their relationship with God!

People tend to make light of playing with evil, experimenting and exploiting others. It is no laughing matter when one opens a door to sin, only later finding out it can never be closed! The very real Satan, the liar, deceiver and accuser will continue to take advantage of that small, maybe even innocent opening to our soul. His aim is to drag all of us away from the Father and down to the pit of despair where he will exist forever. Jesus, in the final book – the end of all things says, ”Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” Revelation‬ ‭2‬:‭16‬. Repent before God cuts us off and out of his presence for good!

So, it’s not so much LIVING in Satan’s city, which many of us probably do. It’s deciding that we will not be conned or enticed to join in the revelry of self-serving sin or play on the fences of evil. We should however run, like Joseph did or repent like King David did.

Prayer

​Dad,
It seems that so many cities come with so many opportunities to seduce our soul! I know now that temptations are customized for each individual. There are commonalities, but each lure, each decoy, is nuanced, fitting to our own desires. Each offer comes with its own impatience, its own unique promise to fulfill what only you can satisfy perfectly. You give us grace, but you have also given us the power to resist, and the strength to run. With each temptation you will show us the way of escape – if we would only take it. Help us O Lord. Forgive us for our willingness to be ensnared and fulfill our desires with sin.

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Heads Up!

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I remember my sons’ city-league baseball coaches telling the team in the field – “head’s up!” It was a call to be alert, stay in the game, don’t allow your eyes or thoughts to wander off.

The Apostle Paul brings a clarion call to the churches in Colossae, and to our own lives, to a similar, but much higher plain. Set your sights on the realities of what is above. Inquire higher!

But how do we do that Paul? There are so many shifty and shiny things going on around us right now. Paul uses the word for “think”, phroneó, to admonish us to shift our thoughts, to think as a visceral and cognitive process, describing more than focusing our mind, but also engaging our heart and emotions to fix our attention elsewhere. “To the things above,” Paul writes.

Paul does not use the word heaven, he just refers to what is above us, not just physically, but spiritually – the realms, where the reality of this life exists. Paul is not speaking of a dualistic existence. As we discover in the next several verses, he is speaking of getting our minds out of the gutters of sin and the magnetic pull of disordered desires within us. Heads up to pull our heart and mind away from, ”earthly things lurking within you.” Whoa! Paul leaves no room for us to imagine what those “earthly” things might be – he lists them! “Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world,” Colossians‬ ‭3‬:‭5‬.

It turns out this encouragement is also a warning, “Pull your head out,” and look up to not only where Christ is seated, but also to where God is working to ”renew us, making us more like Jesus,” Colossians‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬! The “game,” here in this life, is to grab with gusto, everything we desire and live for ourselves. But the reality of God tells us those things are deadly and will never fully satisfy nor fulfill us. It is only through aggressive obedience that we can shift our thoughts to Christ, who is life. So head’s up and get back into the real life God has called us to!

Prayer

​Dad,
It is so easy to be distracted, to be drawn back into former things, former life, former decisions. Those patterns and paths were so deeply carved into my life as a young man. Yet, I hear your voice, your whispered warnings to look up and stop looking back! That life, those desires were not of you nor from you. Help me to keep looking up and focus on the realties of what Christ has done! Thank you for your daily mercy and grace. Amen.