DEFEND ME, GOD

“I depend on God alone; I put my hope in Him. He alone protects and saves me; He is my defender, and I shall never be defeated. My salvation and honor depend on God; He is my strong protector; He is my shelter.” (Psalm 62:5-7 GNT)

Sovereign God, defend me from all temptation, that I may ever accept the right and refuse the wrong. Defend me from myself, that in Your care my weakness may not bring me to shame. May my lower nature never seize the upper hand.

Defend me from all that would seduce me, that in Your power no tempting voice may cause me to listen, no tempting sight fascinate my eyes.

Defend me against the chances and changes of this life, not that I may escape them but that I may meet them with firm resolve; not that I may be saved from them but that I may come unscathed through them.

Defend me from discouragement in difficulty and from despair in failure, from pride in success, and from forgetting You in the day of prosperity.

Help me to remember that there is no time when You will fail me and no moment when I do not need You.

Grant me this desire: that guided by Your light and defended by Your grace, I may come in safety and bring honor to my journey’s end by the defending work of Jesus Christ my Lord. May it always be so! 

-- Adapted from Norman Shawchuck in “A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God”

#6076

CONFESSING SIN

At the earlier Methodist class meetings, members were expected every week to answer some extremely personal questions, such as the following:  Have you experienced any particular temptations during the past week?  How did you react or respond to those temptations?  Is there anything you are trying to keep secret, and, if so, what?  At this point, the modern Christian swallows hard!  We are often coated with a thick layer of reserve and modesty which covers "a multitude of sins" -- usually our own.  Significantly, James 5:16-20, the original context of that phrase, is the passage which urges, "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed." 

-- Michael Griffiths in “Cinderella with Amnesia” [1975]

#5419

RESISTING TEMPTATION

Foundational to gaining strength to resist temptation is a life lived in God. I can remember times in my life when I felt spiritually flat and emotionally exhausted. I know how vulnerable I was. I thank God daily for the many times He has protected me when I have not had the good sense to take care of myself.

Be regular in fellowship with Christians. Be regular in worship. Be regular in your devotional life. I have found my men’s Bible study to be an essential part of the spiritual foundation for my life. Men need a place where they can discuss openly and honestly with other men the tensions and problems they encounter in life. If you are not in a study like this, seek one. Make certain it has the element of personal sharing in it. Also, find your place of ministry through your local church. Where can you serve God with your gifts?  Being in a place of service for God helps us to be accountable in our lives. 

-- Tom L. Eisenman in “Temptations Men Face”

#5303

THE 40 DAYS OF LENT

“At once the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, and He was there for forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels ministered to Him.”  (Mark 1:12-13)

Lent is the season in the Christian year that comes just before Easter. Lent is basically a time for recentering our lives. Lent is the time in the church year where we take stock of our lives, and where we choose to live in a new way. And, just like Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, Lent is a forty-day period [excluding Sundays]. It's a time to recommit ourselves to a new way of living...or, perhaps just to an old way of living that we've forgotten about.

-- Copyright Eric Folkerth 2000. All Rights Reserved. (Used with Permission)

#5299

THE TEMPTATION OF POWER

“But [the Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible?  Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love.  It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life… The long painful history of the church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led.  Those who resisted this temptation to the end and thereby give us hope are the true saints. 

-- Henri J. M. Nouwen in “In the Name of Jesus” 

#5298

DOING WHAT IS RIGHT

Jesus said to His disciples, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  (Matthew 26:41 NIV)

We are too Christian really to enjoy sinning, and too fond of sinning really to enjoy Christianity.  Most of us know perfectly well what we ought to do; our trouble is that we do not want to do it.

-- Peter Marshall 

#5153

SEEING SIN FOR WHAT IT IS

“We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.”  (Isaiah 64:6 NLT)

According to a radio report, a middle school in Oregon faced a unique problem. A number of girls began to use lipstick and put it on in the school bathroom. After they put on their lipstick, they pressed their lips to the mirrors leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Finally the principal decided something had to be done. She called the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the custodian. She explained lip prints caused a major problem for the custodian, who had to clean the mirrors every day. To demonstrate how difficult it was, she asked the custodian to clean one of the mirrors. He took out a long-handled brush, dipped it into the toilet, and scrubbed the mirror. Since then there have been no lip prints on the mirrors.

When tempted to sin, if we could only see the real filth we’d be kissing, we wouldn’t be attracted to it. 

-- Brett Kays, cited in “Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion”

#4976

THE POWER OF THE INDWELLING LORD

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 NIV)

It is amazing how few Christians today have claimed the power of the indwelling Lord. They believe in Him as Savior but side-step His lordship over their inner hearts.

In his book “Can I Know God?” W. E. Sangster put it pointedly. “It is not enough to have Christ near to us. Oh, it is wonderful, of course, in contrast with not even believing in His existence at all or knowing Him only as a name, but, for the highest spiritual life, it is not enough. You see, we do most of our living inside us. Our thinking, feeling, and willing are all within. External events press upon us, but they have meaning only by our internal interpretation. We discover that when we are dealing with the troubles of life. The important thing is not what happens to us but what happens in us. The same thing can happen to two different people and a precisely different thing happens in them… If, therefore, we are to be helped in our battle against temptation and in our war with fear and worry, selfishness and greed, we must have help within. Not there, but here! Not outside, but inside.”

-- Lloyd J. Ogilvie in “If God Cares, Why Do I Still Have Problems?”

#4401

FILLING YOUR MIND

“Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way.”  (Proverbs 4:14-15)

“It’s hard to stop a freight train once it’s left the station,” an old saying goes. In other words, once you yield to temptation, it’s hard to stop and retrace your steps. The best way to avoid the pitfalls of life is through knowledge and understanding. If you know what quicksand looks like, you’re not likely to step in it. Fill your mind with good thoughts, and stay on the path of victory.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.”  (Philippians 4:8)

-- from “God’s Little Book of Proverbs: Timeless Wisdom for Daily Living”

#4390

DON’T STAY DOWN!

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father -- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.”  (1 John 2:1 NIV)

It is instructive that while the devil is called the Tempter, he is also called the Accuser. As soon as he gets someone to give in to temptation, he will switch hats and try to convince us that because we have yielded to temptation, we are beyond redemption.

The Spirit [The Advocate] is just the opposite, always seeking to “deliver us from evil.” When we do give in, the flow of the Spirit moves us toward forgiveness, redemption, and healing.

-- John Ortberg in “The Me I Want to Be”

#4368

OLYMPIC-LIKE TRIALS

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”  (James 1:2-4 NIV)

Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

-- James Buckham

#4275

SHAPING OUR MIND

We once lived across the street from a couple who did not get along.  The husband worked in security, but his passion was to be a body-builder.  He was strong, sarcastic, and self-centered.  His wife was small and timid -- and angry.

He had to go to work every morning at 6:00, and she got up at 5:00 to fix his lunch.  We wondered why she would do this for someone she was so mad at until she explained that she was secretly packing his lunches with enough calories to put weight on Shamu the Killer Whale.  She loaded what he thought were dietary turkey sandwiches with butter and mayonnaise.  She put extra sugar in his yogurt and made his protein shakes with half-and-half.  He worked out a lot, but he could never understand why his body didn’t look like the guys in the magazine.

He never knew she was larding him up when he wasn’t looking.

Our bodies are constantly being formed by what goes into them.  We may not like this truth, we may not heed it, but we can’t evade it.  Bodies get shaped by what goes into them…

In this world we are being bombarded by a steady stream of messages from the media, bosses, co-workers, people we date, books, iPods -- and from our own thoughts.  Our mind will be shaped by whatever we feed it while the Evil One tries to lard up our mind when we’re not looking.  He will put depression in our thoughts at breakfast, sprinkle temptation in our mind at noon, and slip us a worry sandwich when it’s time for bed.

He will try to keep us from noticing what we are putting into our mind.

-- John Ortberg in "The Me I Want To Be"

#4119

SAYING 'YES'

I cannot continuously say 'No' to this or 'No' to that, unless there is something ten times more attractive to choose. Saying 'No' to my lust, my greed, my needs, and the world's powers takes an enormous amount of energy. The only hope is to find something so obviously real and attractive that I can devote all my energies to saying 'Yes.' ... One such thing I can say 'Yes' to is when I come in touch with the fact that I am loved. Once I have found that in my total brokenness I am still loved, I become free from the compulsion of doing successful things.

-- Henri Nouwen, in an interview in Leadership Journal

#3746

GOD'S LAWS FOR LIVING

"The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple."  (Psalm 19:7 NIV)

There are times when it can be so tempting to 'bend' the rules in certain cases, especially if we don't think we'll get caught. But when we resist the temptation and follow God's laws for living, we'll invariably see that God has just spared us from needless grief.

-- Matt Donnelly,  ChristianityToday.com

#3690

SAYING YES TO GOD'S LOVE

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39)

I cannot continuously say 'No' to this or 'No' to that, unless there is something ten times more attractive to choose. Saying 'No' to my lust, my greed, my needs, and the world's powers takes an enormous amount of energy. The only hope is to find something so obviously real and attractive that I can devote all my energies to saying 'Yes.' ... One such thing I can say 'Yes' to is when I come in touch with the fact that I am loved. Once I have found that in my total brokenness I am still loved, I become free from the compulsion of doing successful things.

-- Henri Nouwen, in an interview in Leadership Journal


#3393

DELIVER US FROM EVIL

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

 

No man consciously chooses evil because it is evil.

He only mistakes it for the happiness he seeks. 

 

-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

 

 

#3266

SOMEBODY'S GONNA FALL

A friend of mine has a unique perspective on temptation. He says there have only been two temptation stories since the beginning of time. The temptation of the first Adam in the Garden led to the fall of man. And the temptation of the second Adam, Jesus Christ, led to Satan's fall. All temptation, he says, will conclude with one or the other. Either we will fall, as Adam fell, or we will stand, as Jesus stood, and see Satan fall.

Temptation is always a shortcut. It's Satan's way of offering you now what God wants to give you later on. What he doesn't tell you is the cost -- and the consequences. 

-- Ron Mehl in Just in Case I Can't Be There


#3072

STRENGTHENED CHARACTER

Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of character but strengthen it. Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.

-- James Buckham


#2486