When a child approaches the stove, you tell them not to touch it but sometimes they have to burn their finger to realize it’s a bad thing.
Proverbs chapter 5 says temptation is like the lips of an adulterous woman, dripping honey, her speech smoother than oil; but in the end, she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword… Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house…
For if you travel too closely, she will entice you to with her fragrance; yet one step beyond her threshold finds you deep in a pit, whether it be a substance, an errant thought or whatever our particular weakness may be.
Evil knows what it is.
But so does God.
Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost For His Highest, March 14 – “Obedience” writes about how yielding to a temptation makes us quickly its slave because we chose it. The more you try to be good, the harder you fight, the more you pray for it to go away, it still consumes you because you allowed it to.
He continued:
“There is no release in human power at all but only in Redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One Who can break the dominating power… the Lord Jesus Christ.”
To surrender fully.
A heart completely unmasked.
Unguarded.
Laid Bare.
Too often I fight, and scrape, and try to climb out on my own only to crumble in exhaustion. It’s only then I fully surrender and cry out to God.
Immediately, Jesus reached out His hand and caught me.
We can choose to lay our hearts bare
Before the tempter
Or before the One Who can truly break our chains.
Father,
Please forgive my weakness.
My stubbornness.
My foolishness.
Help me to call on You as my first option
long before You become my only option.
Amen…