Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan.
Omniscient Lord, You called Lot, righteous Lot . . . that righteous man. May I not be deceived, Lord God, for You are not mocked; for whatever I sow, that I will also reap. I remember what Lot’s wife reaped. I will not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? Therefore I come out from among them and am separate, as You say, Lord. I do not touch what is unclean. I will not be a partaker with them. For I was once darkness, but now I am light in the Lord. Enable me to walk as a child of light, finding out what is acceptable to You, my Lord. And I will have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
Lord, I was once darkness, but now I am light in You. In Your power, may I keep walking in the light.
GENESIS 13:10–11; 2 PETER 2:7–8; GALATIANS 6:7; LUKE 17:32; 2 CORINTHIANS 6:14, 17; EPHESIANS 5:7–8, 10–11
Dr. David Jeremiah Turning Points with God
The greatest of intentions can leave you scorched.
The refusing to believe what dangers the Spirit warns us of will do the same. It will leave you burned and insensitive to further dangers in life.
You can’t play with fire intimately and not be the worse for it.
All this to say there are no "safe" sins.
There are no sins that you can accept doing that won't have a negative impact on you and your life.
The world indeed will convince you otherwise by couching that sin or that temptation in a way that you will accept it.
You will be ensnared just as the Bible says will happen to all who don't listen to the warnings it contains.
A great part of my downfall prior to the spring of 1999 was one deception after another that I swallowed hook, line and sinker. I thought that I would be able to run in, very much where Angels would fear to tread, and try to rescue people.
Understand this clearly: There's but 1 Savior, He’s Jesus Christ. It isn't ever going to be you and your good intentions.
Idolatry is perhaps one of the greatest deceptions. Adultery is up there with it.
Idolatry has millions of forms these days. It begins as small things that consume, just like a match that is struck and laid at the edge of a forest. Once it's started its oh so hard to put out. We can get in so deep that we either accept it and keep on going or we cry out, wisely, to God to pull us out!
Would you ever recognize Idolatry?
Really recognize it? I am convinced that billions of people in today's world would not know it if it were someone who would come up and introduce itself. That would include practically everyone in the professing Church.
Adultery is, again, up there. Morality has been so far removed in being taught that the attributes of it aren't recognized and if they are, those who do are mocked. Those people are ridiculed for such old fashioned beliefs.
Idolatry is something that if you are serious about walking with Jesus, you WILL confront in you.
In its simplest terms Idolatry is setting up anything or anyone in the place of Jesus in your heart. That person or thing is what gets your love, passion, devotion, attention, respect, and time. We are taught at a young age how to set up idols yet, as craftily as Satan's plan is, it's never called that. We are taught to love things and not people. We are taught to love this or that thing. We just got to have this or that for our collection for no other reason than to showcase our love of it.
We show who we serve easily by what takes up our time, energy and effort.
We get burned a little and don't realize small scars form. They build up.
Good example is how we train ourselves to handle hot things. In a prior job I used to use a curing oven for epoxy. It was at a constant 150 degrees Fahrenheit. When I first began using it I wore gloves to remove items that had been in it for an hour or so. After a while I got to testing my ability to remove items without the gloves. To this day I can do it easily without gloves. Problem is...this means the nerves in my fingers have been taught to disregard the pain that used to come from such things.
We teach ourselves with each acceptable sin to accept other sins. We teach ourselves to allow sins because of our insensitivity to prior sins. We blindly follow along with a world that's falling off a cliff into the heart of Hell. We ourselves are saved in Christ Jesus, if in fact we are indeed saved. We won't enter into Hell but our lives won't be what they could have been.
We are warned in the Bible of situations and temptations to stay away from. Yet our prideful heart says that we can handle it.
We allow ourselves to think things without taking the thoughts captive by asking Jesus concerning what we see, feel and might be experiencing. We get ahead of ourselves. I have way too many examples in my life to share of me getting ahead of myself.
In recent posts I have mentioned my need and desire to be serving my God. This is a local serving. I want my life to be seen as one that Jesus would be happy with. No believer is exempt from active service to our God and King. Nobody who claims the name of Jesus should be doing nothing for the Kingdom of God.
All should make what's important to the Father important to us.
The Father spoke from Heaven to all who were there that day and said "This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!"
I do indeed have several ministries that I am involved with at home. This blog and my computer repair ministry. I became a member of my local church to do more than sit and warm a seat each Sunday. We are called to do more than that. Romans 12 tells us to do more than that.
We need to examine ourselves to see if we are indeed putting the things of God in their right perspective. We need to examine our wants and desires to see if they reflect a servant attitude. Jesus said He didn't come to be serve but to serve.
We went through some extremely difficult choices in what to keep and what to give up when we moved. That is what I meant by having a clean slate in regards to some things. I wanted to get my priorities right this time. I wanted what I would get involved with to be God honoring. That it wouldn't be wasted time, energy or effort.
I might indeed have been paired up with someone who could use what I think I am being lead to let go of.
God's been providing things that I can use as the right tools to write about Biblical things and study my Bible. A great advantage to using old computers is they truly are isolated from worldly interactions. No updates, no telemetry recording of where you are online.
Lastly it helps me greatly to heal from my scars of being burned by bad choices and decisions to be serving. To be found doing what God designed me to be doing when He returns. Who WANTS to be asked why they didn't do what He gave them to be doing?
Be oh so careful of what you introduce into your life as acceptable to be doing or thinking. Temptations are more than a group from the 60's. They are dangers that are designed to slowly, methodically, turn your heart away from what the Spirit is directing you to be doing for the Kingdom of God. They are designed by Satan to twist your thoughts into believing they are ok and normal. That your justification of those things are what's good and acceptable. That you don't need to check with God before running ahead.
Be mindful of every single time that Israel didn't consult the Lord...they suffered greatly for it! Even a simple thing can change the course of life. A single pebble, properly placed, can change the course of a river.
You can’t be sensitive to the things of God if you keep getting desensitized to sin.
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