“Not by might or power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of host.”
Zechariah 4:6
We overcome temptation not by our might or by our power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. The tempter does not fear our logic, our common sense, or us. He fears one thing only and that is God, Almighty. The Bible says that the demons know that God is there, they just do not worship Him.[1] My mental acknowledgment of God gets me nothing. I must surrender to Him. In time every knee will bow and every tongue shall confess to God.[2] His Spirit knows no bounds or limitations, the only reason we succumb to the sins of the flesh is because we do not allow His Spirit to work in our lives.
The scriptures say that our condemnation is in the fact that God has sent light into the world, but men loved darkness over the light.[3] We preferred the darkness because our deeds were evil. We do not want to follow God, we want to follow our own perverted pleasures. We would rather fornicate than to allow the Spirit of God to overcome it. Let’s face it, we sin because our flesh enjoys it. If we did not enjoy it we would not be doing it. There is no temptation in a root canal, because it is very painful. The reason there is temptation in fornication and sexual perversion is because we think it is fun. The pleasure though is short-lived, but the consequences can last a lifetime. For many of us we are willing to give up all that God has for us for the temporary pleasures of sin. On the one hand God is offering us the world and we accept instead a few moments of selfish pleasure in fornication. Choose God that you may live.
“Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.”
Hebrews 11:25
We must always remember that sins pleasures are always passing. They never last. Those who trust in pleasure, money and worldly wisdom will find that they are standing in quick sand. They are trusting in false idols and in the end God will prove their foolishness. We as a people have sold out our heritage of God for the false idol of pleasure. The entire world today is about pleasure. You are not living if you are not seeking and getting pleasure. Nothing else in this world matters but pleasure seeking. Look at the television, movies, and music industries their only message is selfish pleasure. Seek your own desires and pleasures with no thought to the consequences. The youth of today have been given the mistaken belief that life has no consequences that they are able to do whatever they want without any repercussions. Well that is just not true. There may not be repercussions on television, but there are in God’s world.
The little struggles that we go through now are nothing compared to what God has in store for us.[4] We have been conditioned that life is about pleasure, if you are not feeling pleasure take something or do something until you are. Modern life is trying to lose its discomfort, well God has a purpose for discomfort. It is to develop our reliance and trust in Him and to build our character. Imagine life with only pleasure. Imagine a diet of only your favorite food day after day, I think that in a short time it will no longer be your favorite. It would be good for the first few meals, but eventually you would become sick of it, just as you would if pleasure were your only goal, what a hollow and shallow existence that would be. If you spend all your time doing what you want to do you will have no time to do what God has for you to do. Where have we gotten this misguided idea that all life is about our selfish pleasure? Those of us who choose to follow God should realize that our Lord told us that following Him would require sacrifice. Trials and tribulations build perfection in us through the working of the Spirit of God. These trials build up our faith in the Father. As we overcome temptations and trials our focus narrows to the One who gave us the power to overcome.
“You are of God, little children, and have overcome
them, because He who is in you is greater than
he who is in the world.”
1 John 4:4
We will not overcome, we have already overcome through the Christ and His redemptive work. God has empowered us with everything we need to defeat the temptations of this world. It is time for us to claim our victorious lives and stop clinging to those defeated lives. You can overcome any temptation the world has to bring you if you only remember where your power lies, it is not in your own power or strength but in the Spirit of God.
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