April 25
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)
My main point over the last few days is that in order for us to take the way of escape, we need to know when and how we are tempted, and we need a plan to avoid the temptation immediately and decisively when it appears in the future. We ready ourselves and prepare for temptation by carefully understanding our thought patterns, clearly seeing where we made the decisions to sin, and where temptation got the best of us. Then we can formulate a plan to avoid the wrong thinking and those poor decisions in the future.
If you don’t take the time to think back on your failures and really understand the wrong turns you took and how your thinking went astray, then you are doomed to repeat those sins over and over again. You cannot be prepared and gain the victory if you don’t understand how and why you stumble and don’t have a plan to overcome.
We break the cycle of sin by
(1) wanting to break the cycle and wanting to understand how we failed,
(2) examining and analyzing the circumstances, feelings, and thinking that lead us to sin,
(3) understanding the truth and how correct beliefs and actions could have enabled us to avoid those sins,
(4) formulating a plan for victory, and
(5) praying and readying ourselves to gain the victory next time.
We need to become very adept at clearly identifying the way of escape from the sins that make us stumble. We need to know exactly what that doorway of escape looks like and what happens to us if we don’t choose the way of escape when it is available to us. We shouldn’t be surprised when we sin. We shouldn’t look back and be confused about how it happened. It ought to be very clear exactly where we went wrong, and where we actually made the decision to choose disobedience and sin rather than to choose obedience and righteousness. We should keep thinking about it and analyzing it until it becomes very clear where we went wrong.
Step (1) is to want to break the sin cycle. Do you want to break the cycle of your sins? Jesus said to the paralytic at the well, “Do you wish to get well?” (John 5:6) I think Jesus’ question highlights a key question and hints that the man might have been using his sin as a crutch to avoid a responsible life. Maybe he liked begging better than working. Maybe he was getting some twisted emotional need met by being almost completely dependent on others. This is true for sin patterns and emotional deficiencies as well as physical problems, I believe. They can become an excuse to avoid a responsible life. Sometimes we can become so comfortable in our sin that the thought of not having it, not being able to go to it for comfort or using it as a crutch, scares us. The first question we all must honestly face is, ‘Do I want to get well?’