My work piles up, and my life falls behind. My life piles up, and this blog falls behind. Well, here's an attempt to gain some ground. (Winning this race has not proved viable. I'll settle for not being annihilated.)
G-man, you're blog is a stitch. It's great to see you in such a good mood.
My Birthday
We celebrated my birthday last night. The day took place while we were gone to South Dakota. My sisters and mom brought a gift along, and everyone sang to me (although they didn't make me play for myself this year!). Still we have a "real" celebration here at home. Mostly that consists of a special meal and the rest of my gifts.
We were going to celebrate today (Sunday), but when everything was ready yesterday, Mom said, "Why not tonight?" So we had chicken and wild rice soup with tomato basil squares. That latter item is from a recipe we got with a baking stone from Pampered Chef. It's got a scrumptious crust that's covered with a cheese and basil mixture and tomato slices. Yummy! For my cake I had a mocha toffee torte that's always a hit. Anyone hungry yet?
Sunday School
We've been going through The Purpose Driven Life in Sun--excuse me, Adult Bible Fellowship. We're currently covering the chapters on temptation. He gets it all right with his evaluation of what causes temptation. Our desire and doubt opens us up to Satan's deception. The result: disobedience. All of this has Scripture to back it up. He even managed to alliterate (note the ds).
I wasn't as impressed with his solutions, however. They weren't terrible, but they didn't have the solid Scripture behind them and they didn't address the problems of desire, doubt, and deceit. And they didn't alliterate.
So I started making my own list. Problem was, I could get 3 ts or 3 fs, but not 4. Terry helped me out with another t, but I sometimes liked the other term better. So I guess I'll use a mix.
Adjusting Desire
Where is desire formed? Christ says, "lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven...for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matt. 6:20-21) There's the t-word: treasure. When we put our value in heavenly things, when we do God's work and reserve rewards for eternity, something in the temptation starts to lose power over us. Paul says, "Set your affection [mind--NKJV] on things above, not on things on the earth." (Col. 3:2) Our focus is the key. If we're looking one way, we don't see what's going on in the other direction. How can we be distracted by what we don't see?
Combatting Deceit
I know--I'm doing these out of order. This makes more sense to me. What causes doubt but belief in a lie? So how better to fight deceit than to fill one's mind with the Truth? If I am in God's Word, dwelling in the truth, how could I fall for a lie?
Tackling Doubt
After investing in eternity and finding out the truth, there's only one thing to do. Trust. Have faith. It all boils down to a choice. Will you believe what God says?
Defeating Disobedience
So if we deal with the root of the problem, then the result should be triumph, faithfulness. And it will be. That's the secret of God's grace. We don't win by working harder, avoiding temptation, following some magic list of rules. We win by giving over to God. We focus on Him. We fill ourselves with His truth. We choose to believe Him. And He wins the battle for us.
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