Temptation

Here is something (some things…) I have learned more about this semester:

First, temptations.
If after overcoming a temptation you are no closer to Christ than before, then you may as well have succumbed. In fact, you may not have defeated the temptation at all, but simply accepted it as a usual thing that will return, something that you can please at a later date. When we attempt to become sinless by our own power alone we completely lose sight of the nature of sin. When we think we have overcome a sin pattern in our lives because (recently) we were not as sorely tempted as we have been before, we forget that there is a spiritual war over our souls each day, and that hell is wily enough to feign retreat.

Neither Satan nor Jesus have forgotten us. While Satan prepares the next assault, let us build a fortress. Let's not rejoice solely in temporal victory but in God's eternal victory. Let us always be brought back to the eternal, heavenly knowledge of what our earthly lives really are.

Sometimes we think of sin as an absence of good instead of an evil that is seeking our destruction. We think of sin as a neutral that is wrong when we seek it. We do not understand that sin lusts for us, longs for us, desires to be one with us, desires to become part of our lives in the most intimate way.
(Side note I may expound on later: Compare Genesis 3:16 with 4:7 and with SoS 7:10 -- those are the three times that word "desire" is used in the Bible)

We need to stop leading sin on. We need our Daddy to come out on the porch with a shotgun and put the fear into our sin. We need our relationship with our Father to be intimate enough that we have opened up and He can teach us, that He can rescue us, because He will when we ask.