October 18
“Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.” (2 Peter 1:10-11)
Some of you may be thinking that writing out all of these things is too much work and reviewing them every day is unrealistic to expect of anyone; it is unreasonable and unnecessary. Well, I certainly understand the large amount of effort and time I am recommending. But I would have a couple of responses to these types of objections.
First, what is your alternative? By all means, if you know of some other God-honoring way of putting to death immoral lusts and addictions, go for it. But consider these factors when you are evaluating alternatives: a) does it address the thoughts and intentions of the heart or just the external actions? b) will it be effective long term or just short term? c) will it open the door to any other addiction, dependency, or sin? One of my premises is that only God can remove these sins and produce true change; man’s techniques coupled with human effort may help for a time but may fail in the long run. Only the Spirit can produce the change, so we have to focus on things that allow Him to do that work.
Second, what is your goal? Do you want complete, long term mastery over your thoughts, heart’s desires, and actions, or are you willing to settle for a partial victory or temporary success? My prescriptions are based on the premise that if we are stuck in immoral behaviors that we need a major overhaul of our heart and mind. Reading a little here or there, having our electronic access curbed, gaining some knowledge, hearing a motivating speaker, even having a great experience with God one day, none of these will produce lasting results in my opinion. Praise God if they do, but don’t be surprised or discouraged if they do not.
Daily reviewing scriptures pertaining to your sin renews your mind daily and allows the Spirit to transform it. Daily time in the word sets your mind on the things above in a fresh and exciting way, since each day is a new discovery of God and the pursuit of being with Him. Daily time in prayer is the engine that empowers our efforts. Daily review of reasons for overcoming, consequences, character traits, rewards, critical transformations, disciplines to develop, etc. all serve to bring us back to the all important question of “WHY?”
Why do all this? Why put this effort into overcoming these sins of immorality? Why not just go with the flow? If we just focus on the WHAT, that is, if we just said, “Study your Bible, meet weekly with an accountability partner, use software that prevents viewing of pornography or sends messages to someone else of all the websites you visit, etc,” I believe we would be setting you up for failure, because we would be neglecting the critical question of WHY? If the WHY is not in view at all times, the WHAT will soon become tiresome, and we will find a way around it. If you want to be successful overcoming these insidious and vexing temptations of lust and immoraltiy, you must always keep the WHY in mind. When the WHY is clear to you, the WHAT becomes easier to do and more effective. But if all we talked about was the WHAT without regularly reminding ourselves of the WHY, it would become drudgery, and eventually we would find ways to circumvent the safeguards or stop doing the WHAT altogether, and the last state may be worse than the first.
So these recommendations are a lot of work, but they focus us on Christ, develop the relationship with Him, and help us keep the WHY clearly in view.