January 1, 2009

Temptation

Every new year brings the small challenge of deciding on a devotional guide. Sometimes I begin with one and am disappointed because it isn’t touching my needs. This year our pastor challenged the whole church to read through the NIV Chronological Bible since he plans to preach from something out of each week’s selection. I’m excited about being “on the same page” with everyone as far as our reading goes, but am not sure this will work for personal devotions. However, I start today, and today the Lord gives me two thoughts.

The first one is hugely humbling. As I read this, I began to think about the vastness of creation and also to feel very small.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19).
Certainly I am not the center of my universe.

The second thought came from Genesis 3:6-13. It says:
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Right from the beginning, sin had devastating consequences. Adam and Eve were aware something was not as it should be and felt shame. I know that feeling. When I sin, God lets me see that I am outside of what He intends. I feel embarrassed at the least, but usually guilty and ashamed of myself. I feel distress that I have disregarded God and even hurt other people. While psychologists try to do away with guilt, I know that it is a good thing. It is my warning light that my spiritual life needs attention.

Sin also produces fear; Adam and Eve hid from God. When I sin, I want to be by myself and not face others. If I must talk to others, I try to cover my shame with a happy face, yet being superficial only makes relationships superficial.

How many people are truly straightforward? Most talk lightly about life, cannot say what they feel, and relationships never go deeper than casual conversation. How frustrating when this happens with someone that I want to get to know better, or someone in the family, or someone that I’ve once been close to and now cannot get past the weather.

I cannot be superficial with God either, but unless I deal with my sin, my spiritual life becomes shallow and meaningless. Being afraid to talk to Him about sin is a common event in the lives of far too many of His children. Instead of hiding, I must always be straight up with God, and with others.

Sin also has a way of making me point fingers. Like Adam and Eve, instead of saying I was wrong, I tend to blame something or someone else for what I have done. “Oh, I had bad information” or “If you hadn’t done that, I would not have. . . .”

Adam blamed Eve. He had a tough decision. She took the fruit and was in a state of disobedience. If he refused to take some too, he would stay in fellowship with God but not with his wife. Think about that. If someone that I love sins, I also am tempted because I don’t want my relationship with them broken. But if I go along with their sin, even verbally, will I also say to God, “Well, my friend made me do it”?

If I don’t blame another person, I still blame other things, like fatigue, ignorance, haste, or numberless excuses, particularly the one that Eve used — “I didn’t know. . . .” or a variation of “The devil made me do it.”

I am free to make choices, yet choices are never arbitrary, but based on something. Usually they are between what God wants and what I want. Sometimes I neglect to clarify and consider two options as if God has nothing to do with my decisions. For instance, when it comes to eating properly, I might know that I should not have that piece of pie, but am not thinking about the verses in the Bible that talk about self-control, and personal disciplines. I argue that I want to eat it, and that I don’t care about unneeded calories, even though before and after the pie is set before me, I do care.

Last night we went to a wonderful buffet with friends. The food was fabulous, best of the year. We ate and ate. We joked that on New Year’s Eve, it didn’t have calories, but in the back of my mind I knew that I would pay the price the next day.

This morning, when I got on the scales I was shocked that I weighed the same as I have all week. How did that happen? Yet after reading these verses in Genesis, I realize that I cannot think I am beyond the rules of the universe, including the one that says I will reap what I sow! It isn’t just overeating; any sin produces negative results, scale or no scale.

Further, if that number leaps up a few pounds tomorrow, will I then blame my husband for taking me there, our friends who kept going for more, or the chefs who cooked the food? Will I forget that even though God will not always stand beside me with a bathroom scale, He does offer the spiritual fruit of self-control?

Adam and Eve could have selected the fruit from the tree of life, and so can I. The life of Christ who lives in me offers spiritual fruit that is not only tasty, but far better for my health and well-being than anything else, even “just one more” piece of dark chocolate cake dipped in a fountain of melted white chocolate!

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