Five Powerful Ways You Can Conquer Temptation
I am not a great snow skier. I recall a time I slid down a mountain and was only stopped when I hit a snow fence and “face-planted” on the other side of it!
Snow skiing is “slightly downhill and out of control.” Kind of like TEMPTATION.
Sin is a slippery slope.
How can you put on the brakes when you are about to slide off the mountain?
1. Recognize the danger of LUST.
When I see a snake (even out of the corner of my eye), I have a knee-jerk reaction: “RUN!” I don’t study it for markings, look in its eyes, or see if I can hold it. I run a safe distance and look for a shovel!
“Lust” destroys you when you “see something with your eyes that you do not resist with your FEET.” Joseph ran out of the bedroom of Potiphar’s wife when she tried to ensnare him. PUT SOME DISTANCE BETWEEN YOU AND THE SNAKE.
2. Stay out of INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS with people bound by sin.
“Bad company ruins good morals” (1 Cor. 15:33).
If an elevator is going down and you are going up, why would you get on that elevator just because it is full of people?
They are going the opposite direction from you. You will go DOWN with them. Beware of the idea that you can have an intimate relationship with a person of different values and convictions. It is just a matter of time before your resistance fades and you “go down with them.”
“Break the PATTERNS and you will break the PROBLEM.”
3. Stay out of the CYCLE OF SIN.
Sin operates like a ferris wheel. You fall, you repent, you walk a while, you fall, you repent, you walk a while…add infinitum. SATAN tells you that you are fine because you are “really trying” to overcome a habit.
We all fail. We all need the grace of God. You may fail more than once at the same sin. Notice, however, when sin has become a pattern. Where are you when it occurs? What are you doing or not doing? Who are you with and at what time of day? Break the PATTERNS and you will break the PROBLEM.
4. Beware of the danger of SELF-CONFIDENCE.
When I feel that no one and nothing can ever expose my secret life, I have become “self-confident.” Satan lies to us that “we will never be exposed.” We feel too smart, too clever, too quick on our feet.
“Be sure your sins will find you out,” Moses told the tribes of Israel. Bring your issues to a friend you can confide in and get help even before you are discovered in a pattern of sin. Self-confidence is PRIDE, and pride is destroyed by transparency and humility.
5. Don’t step over the LINE.
God is so long-suffering and merciful. His mercy, however, has an end. When I act as though His long-suffering is His approval, I am “tempting God.”
There is a place on the river before Niagara Falls where there is “no return.” The current rushing over the falls is too powerful. A casual boat that ignores warning after warning will surely be swept to destruction.
Run from the danger. Stay away from wrong relationships. Break the cycle. Open your life to a confidant. Stay well away from the “line.”
Don’t start down the “slippery slope” and have to “hit a wall.” Consider this blog post a rope to pull you to safety…before it is too late.
