July 4
“’If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.’” (Genesis 4:7)
God said to Cain that sin was crouching at the door but that he was to master it. This implies to me that God gave or would have given him the resources to overcome sin if he so desired to overcome it. We are not told how much or little Cain struggled to overcome the temptation to get angry with and kill his brother Abel. My guess is that he did not think much about his being the first murderer, either before or after he committed the heinous act, since after the fact his main concern seemed to be his own safety and his punishment. He showed no remorse for his deeds or repentance, so that suggests to me, although we cannot be sure, that he spent little time trying to overcome the temptation in the first place.
How about you? How much time do you spend trying to overcome temptation? How much do you wrestle with it and at least attempt to gain the victory over it? When you stumble, is it an easy victory for Satan, or did you walk right into it, perhaps even seeking it out? Like Cain, do you give it much thought at all and just proceed to do whatever it is you want to do and show little concern afterwards about how you have sinned against God and others? Asking yourself questions like these I think can shed a lot of light into your heart and the sequence by which you fall into sin and recover from sin.
As Christians, we have far greater resources at hand to combat temptation. We have the scriptures, Old Testament and New Testament, we have the examples of many saints recorded in the scriptures and in the history of the church, we have the Body of Christ to support and help us in our struggles and temptations, we have been crucified with Christ so our old nature is neutralized and no longer has dominion over us (unless we let it), and perhaps the greatest resource of all, we have the Holy Spirit Himself abiding within us.
“Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19)
What we are trying to get at with this principle is how strong is our resolve to overcome temptation? To what degree are you determined to be victorious over sin? How firm are you when saying ‘no’ to temptation? What do you do? What steps do you take? How far do you go and will you go to maintain the victory? Do you put barriers up so you don’t sin? Do you make plans in advance earlier in the day, knowing that you will be tempted at some point later, and plan the way you will escape and overcome the sin? Do you cry out to God for help? Do you quote scripture? Do you call a friend to pray for you and encourage you? Do you detest the first and second and third thought of the sin, and detest the thought of stumbling into it? Do you set your mind on all the benefits that will come to you if you successfully resist?