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Don’t Slip Back
Into Your Old Ways Of Living
To Satisfy Your Own Desires
In my own life I can remember back when I lived to enjoy the pleasures of sin. I can remember when Kathy and I were first married that drinking (yes … booze) was an important part of my life. I can remember how excited I was about making the second bedroom in our little mobile home a bar. I remember how the family that one Christmas bought me all kinds of accessories to make that bar something really special. … Please keep reading to get the “rest of the story”
Scripture
14 So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”
18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.
Observation
Sam Storms goes on to point out that it is not enough to get someone to do what is right by telling him or her, “Don’t do what is wrong.” He says that the answer is to give him or her a taste of the superior sweetness of God, of the surpassing peace of Christ, of the satisfying pleasure of intimacy with the Holy Spirit.
What he says is so true or at least what he says is so true to me!
In my own life I can remember back when I lived to enjoy the pleasures of sin. I can remember when Kathy and I were first married that drinking (yes … booze) was an important part of my life. I can remember how excited I was about making the second bedroom in our little mobile home a bar. I remember how the family that one Christmas bought me all kinds of accessories to make that bar something really special.
It was right after that Christmas that something happened in my life. Jesus Christ became real to me and the joy and pleasure of knowing Him took away all of the sparkle, all the attraction, and even the idea of having my own little “bar” in our little house trailer.
I don’t think anyone ever told me not to drink. I am sure that no one told me not to have a bar in my house. Nobody had to tell me. The joy and pleasure of living for Jesus Christ and being loved by Him was enough. Other not so good habits in my life slowly lost their charm too, but I am not going to waste your time listing them. I know that I am a sinner and I know that sin is always calling, always tempting me with its lure of pleasure.
Am I still tempted to slip back into my old ways of living … you bet I am. And so are you!
Lets just remember that it was an empty life that we were rescued from and lets not forget that sin is pleasurable, but with the momentary pleasure comes with it pain, hurt, destruction, separation, and death.
You and I were created for pleasure, but only the pleasure of knowing and being known by God will bring us true joy!
Does this make sense?
Application
Prayer
May this verse find its way into their heart and into their mind today, “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Revelation 2:4
Daily Bible Reading:
Isaiah 36,37; Psalms 76; 1 Peter 1
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