I find it incredible just how much God calls out to me and chases after me whenever I begin to wander from unity with Him. Yet there are so many times where I still willingly will chose to ignore His promptings. I recognize Him calling out to me in specific areas, yet many times - more often than not, my flesh decides that I would rather indulge in just one more “tiny, harmless sin” so that my body receives a short-term “fix” off of the temptation.
Near the end of February of this year, the Lord filled me with extreme hunger and thirst for more of Him. Every sermon or video I watched seemed to bring new light into an area of my life that had been hidden by darkness. He continuously met me where I needed to be met just at the right moments. He gave distinct instruction on areas that I needed to surrender, and put callings on my heart that I never felt before.
For those first couple months all I wanted was more of Him and less of me. The reality of His power was so strong upon me because I had witnessed complete healing, restoration, and transformation of my mind and life which had been so corrupted and full of hundreds of satan‘s lies and evil desires. After a few months I realized that I slowly fell back into just a few patterns of my old self such as laziness, isolating myself, jealousy, not measuring up, idolitary, etc. and as soon as I started slowly allowing some sin back into my life, sermons at church were taught to me about the dangers of sin and “playing with fire”.
Somethings that really opened my eyes was the idea that if satan doesn’t like the things that you are doing for God‘s kingdom, he will try to curse you. If he cannot curse you directly, he will place temptation into your life. You see, satan knows that if you fall into temptation, the consequences will end up cursing you in the end which is what he wants. He is known as the “light bringer” and the “father of lies”. If we are not rooted in Christ and fail to recognize the temptation as from the enemy, we will be easily deceived and led down a destructive path. Much like fire, if a spark of ungodliness is ignited within us, it can very easily spread into an out-of-control wildfire if you act upon temptation rather than running to God. If you do’t stay rooted in Christ when temptation arises, it will bring curses and devour your mind.
Even when it is a sin that seems so harmless to yourself or others around you... it is not. There is no such thing as a sin that does not have negative consequences. It will ruin our relationship first with Christ, then ourselves, as well as the way we view others around us and handle situations. The spirit dwells inside of us and it cannot dwell and be active in a body that is corrupted by sin so we have to be careful in checking our hearts daily and fighting temptation. Sin isn’t harmless and satan knows it and wants is very, very good at deceiving me and you into thinking that it is, just as he did with Eve in the garden when she ate the apple. He told her it will benefit her and not harm her. He puts flashy sound-good, feel-good things into your life in the hopes that it will lead you astray.
Countless times in my own life I need to check myself and come before God prior to listening to the voice of the world or of evil when it may feel like it’s “not that bad” in the moment. We need to run to Christ and stay rooted because one who is not rooted in Him will fall into temptation for man cannot restrict his own self alone. Everybody has a few areas where now matter how hard we try to do good, we will fail on our own strength. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I struggle with many sin patterns as all Christians do. We need to surrender all unrighteous thoughts and feelings over to Christ before we allow the unrighteous feelings and thoughts to turn into unrighteous actions (sin) and drowning in the enemies lies and deception. God’s laws are to protect His people and form order, not to deprive us or make our lives misrible. We have to start trusting God’s plan for our lives over our plan in order to see fruit and resist the flesh. He knows what’s best.
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