Flirting with disaster

If you’re thinking about stretching out your toes towards the toasty fire of temptation-don’t! The cute little sins that don’t seem to hurt anything or anyone nailed Jesus to the cross. The evil one uses tempting bait to lure us in his trap of a strong hold. It’s like the Casting Crowns song says “It’s a slow fade”. Once we allow a strong hold to be established in our hearts, then we’ve allowed the devil to control us. This includes our thoughts, our emotions and our actions. We are no longer free, as we should be, but we’ve voluntarily enslaved ourselves. Col. 1:13 says that we have been “rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Son”. Remaining pure is of the utmost importance to be useful to God. But it is also the most difficult thing to accomplish-if we rely on our own strength. This is where surrender to God is required. Once we give ourselves to Him completely, we can tap into His unending stream of power, and His strength is perfect. Bringing every impure thought under immediate control by the power of the Holy Spirit keeps us from taking baby steps away from our perfect unity with God. Using these steps will help keep us clean: confess your thoughts right away, think upon godly things, ask God to order your thoughts and pursue a Christ mindedness.

"Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:15- 17).

Read Grace to you “The Love God Hates” (08/30/2010)
http://www.gty.org/Resources/Devotionals

Good song “Give us clean hands” (performed by Kutless)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6QeWuGwr9E