Money Talks

So, I blogged about the whole Chick-fil-A/"anti-gay" issue a while back (Faux Discrimination) and I stood behind the company's president for his stance against gay marriage.  Well, so much for that stance.  Apparently, the need to open another restaurant in Chicago and the need for more cash trumps biblical values.  They have buckled to pressure to stop funding "anti-gay" groups.  The funny thing is, everyone that does not see eye-to-eye with the LGBT folks is considered an "anti-gay" group, even if you don't do anything but disagree with them.  Not only do they back down from the LGBTQ community, they also allow those same folks, who probably won't support the restaurant financially, to tell them where to spend their money.  That's why I don't really jump on bandwagons because things like this happen all the time.  I did support them and I tried to eat there on the day that Mike Huckabee suggested but it was too crowded.  I also contemplated going there to evangelize during the "kiss-in" but was unable to get there.   The president has now agreed to put a "respect for all" clause into a company memo being circulated and the Alderman, Joe Moreno, that actually blocked the plans to build in his district in Chicago is now playing ball and will approve the plans to build (Chick-Fil-A folds).  I agree that we should respect every man/woman and their "right" to live however they want to but when you OWN the company, YOU call the shots.  I am sure that another city would have welcomed Chick-fil-A with open arms and welcomed the jobs that come along with starting a new business in a new location.  All I can say is wow.  Money talks and you know the rest. 

Perfection

So, I was watching Apollo 13 on AMC and had a thought about the planets.  Have you ever noticed that the planets are all spheres?  Although they have some areas that bulge out slightly around their equators, every planet is essentially a perfect sphere.  Have you ever noticed that all of the planets in our solar system, although composed of different elements, compounds and mixtures of materials, all do the same thing, rotate on an imaginary axis?  All 8 (9 if you still have an affinity for  Pluto) planets are perfectly aligned, rotate perfectly on their axes and orbit the sun in a perfect ellipse.

Why am I saying this?  In looking into the solar system, what we see is an example of God's magnificent creative power and His might.  We also see His attention to detail.  Each planet, although rotating on an axis and orbiting in an ellipse, do not do so at the same rate.  In 24 hours,  the earth rotates once on it's axis and in 365 days it orbits the sun once.  Contrast that with Jupiter which rotates once on its axis in about 9 hours and takes about 11 earth years to make a full revolution around the sun!

Have you ever wondered why planets are spherical in shape?  Gravity basically causes all of the planets to have the same shape.  If the planets were cubic in shape, the corners of the cube would eventually collapse which would be a disaster on a planet that was inhabited. Since gravity pulls everything toward the center every planet is shaped like a sphere.  It just makes sense that the planets are spheres.  The sphere causes gravity to be evenly distributed on the earth's surface which is very important for those of us that live here.

Is this random or is there a Creator at work?   You know the answer and so do many who choose to deny the answer.   God created the universe and he did it in His own way and in perfection.  God gave the planets their shape because He understood that in order for all things to hold together and for the gravitational pull to be exactly as it should be, the sphere is the most efficient shape possible.  Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation, which says that two objects in proximity exert a gravitational pull on each other and the larger the objects, the larger the gravitational force is between those objects, comes into sharp focus when we consider that all of the planets are pulling on each other therefore stay where they are rather than falling out of orbit.

 When God finally answered Job in Chapter 38 of the same book, God spoke of His awesomeness.  One of the things that God boasted of is the hanging of the constellations:

"Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens?  Can you set up [God’s^f] dominion over the earth?"

 

Psalm 147:4 says that God knows "all of the stars by name."  Imagine that, billions of stars in our galaxy alone and God is responsible for placing every one of them where they are and "naming" them!  WOW!  Our astronomers are still discovering stars that God already knows the names of.  He measured the heavens by the span (distance between His thumb and forefinger, Isaiah 40:12), He laid the foundations of the earth and heavens are the work of His hands (Psalm 102:25), He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1) and to top it off, He loves us.  God, the awesome and life-giving Spirit has put his hands to every piece of the universe, His understanding is infinite and yet, He lives in the hearts of each and every believer!  That is worth shouting about!

 

If you don't know anything else, know that you serve an AWESOME and MIGHTY God.  Regardless of what many try to do to minimize Him, He has not changed and He is still as mighty today as He was before he said "Let there be light."  There is NO other God, there is NO other Creator and there is NO other way to God except through His Son Jesus Christ.  Jesus is spoken of in several places of "holding all things together through the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3)" and Colossians 1:16,17 where it says "For by^f him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."  Can you see the majesty and the beauty of divine cooperation between the Father and the Son and how everything in the universe is dependent on this cooperation?  Can you see the perfection in that?  The universe was formed in perfection, the planets have the perfect shape for their purpose, the physical laws that govern their movement were created in perfection...God is perfect.  God is great and greatly to be praised.  Grace and Peace. 

A Subtle but HUGE Difference

Reading a newspaper article recently regarding the uprisings/protests at the American embassies in the Middle East, I read something that struck me as very odd.  In the article, there was a young man quoted as saying “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger, we will sacrifice ourselves for you." [See paragraph 4]  Let me say this, these acts are deplorable!  Considering the vast sums of money and resources that we have committed to the Middle East, this is a quite ungrateful response in my opinion.  Conversely, we have also done our share to destabilize that region as well so maybe our chickens are coming home to roost.    In any event, this is still very disgusting behavior.  I have not seen the video but if Terry Jones is involved with it, I am sure that it is probably distasteful as he has disrespected Muslims on numerous occasions.  However, Christians are defamed every day and yet you don’t see us storming mosques, burning down atheists’ homes or killing people that don’t agree with our beliefs.  In the past, there have been some reprehensible acts committed by “Christians” for very selfish purposes (the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the burning crosses of the KKK come to mind) but Christians that actually live lives that imitate Christ are not prone to violence.

Before I write anything else, I have to say that I have friends that are Muslim and we have very cordial and friendly relationships.  We have had brief discussions regarding Christianity and the differences between Islam and Christianity.  I am not writing this to offend them but I have to say what is on my mind.

I was floored when I read the statement, “We will sacrifice ourselves for you!” because the Lord immediately revealed a critical difference between Islam and Christianity.  In the mind of this man and probably many that think like him, they feel that they are doing a service to God by killing themselves and others that they deem as “infidels”.  I don’t know a lot about the Muslim faith but I do know this, not all of them are terrorists.  Most of them are peaceable men and women but there are some radical Muslims that actually think this way.  They are works based rather than faith and grace based.  In the same way, there are some ultra-radical "Christians" like the Klan that see violence as a means of accomplishing an end, never once stopping to realize that their acts are based on their own selfish, hateful motives and are not ordained by God.

Here is the difference and I thank God for it: God does not ask us to sacrifice ourselves for his sake, he desires obedience more!  From a dissenting perspective, Abraham and Isaac may come up but in that scenario, God was testing Abraham’s obedience and his faith and in the end, God sent an angel to stop Abraham from sacrificing Isaac.  The ram in the bush that was sacrificed in Isaac's place points directly to Jesus Christ and his substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of mankind.   Someone might even bring up Jepthah and the fact that he sacrificed his own daughter.  While this is a very odd story, the context makes it clear that we cannot barter with God and that Jepthah, in his zeal and in exchange for a victory in battle, had not thought of the potential consequences of what he was saying when he told God that he would sacrifice the first thing that he saw upon his arrival home.  Couple this with the fact that during the time of the Judges, “every man did what was right in his own sight”, and we have a clearer picture of this situation.    

God does not need anything  (Acts 17:25) and He is not dependent on our works.  Therefore one of us sacrificing ourselves for Him will not change his status at all.  If 100 Christians decided to strap bombs to themselves and blow up a mosque, they will not only have committed the sins of murder and suicide (self-murder), they will dishonor God by their actions!  God does not need us to sacrifice ourselves for him.  God does not need us to fight for Him!  As a matter of fact, God tells us to “stand still and I will fight your battles.”  If we were in a situation where we had to die for Him as in being martyred at the hands of another, then he would be glorified.

“We will sacrifice ourselves for you…”

Jesus NEVER asked us to sacrifice ourselves for Him, Jesus sacrificed Himself for us- He set the example therefore He stands in position to say the following, “Blessed is the man that is reviled because of my name, great is your reward in heaven.”  Jesus set the example therefore, He stands in position to say the following, “If they hated me first, they will hate you also.”  Jesus never asked us to do anything that He did not do first.  Hebrews 4:15 “For he was tempted in every way yet He was without sin...therefore we have a great high priest that sympathizes with our weaknesses…” 

The apostle Paul says, and advocates that Christians do the same, that he bore the marks of Christ in His body (Galatians 6:17); he filled up the suffering of Christ (Colossians 1:24) - not in a sacrificial way but in a way that imitated the Lord of glory!  Paul suffered at the hands of others for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of the church.  Paul never blew up a synagogue, on the contrary, he actually rejoiced in being persecuted for Christ's sake.  He never retaliated; he understood and articulated the same, in 2 Timothy 3:12, “All who seek to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted.”  Peter said the same thing in four different places in his epistles: suffering for doing good is commendable, carries a reward, brings favor from God  and that we should rejoice in the fact that we are called Christians (1 Peter 2:20, 3:14, 4:15, 4:16).  This is not a call to altruism or self-sacrifice; it is a call to imitate the pattern set forth by Jesus Christ. 

Mohammed did not sacrifice himself for his followers; he actually died from poisoning at the hands of a Jewish woman who poisoned him and his army.  According to historical documents (The poisoning of the Prophet Mohammed), his men died on the spot but he took three years to die.  Some Muslims believe that the fact that it took three years for him to die means that God protected him from the poisoning.  But he still died.  Unlike Jesus, he also did not rise from the dead.  He died in 632 AD and that was that.  Jesus on the other hand, died and got up from the grave with all power in heaven and in earth given unto Him and promised His followers that they would imitate him and rise again also. 

Here is the rub, these men that are willing to “sacrifice” themselves for the prophet Mohammed are dying by their own hands; committing suicide.  But Jesus Christ died, not by His own hands, but by the hands of godless men who placed a crown of thorns on His head, slapped Him in His face, drove nails into his hands and feet and pierced His side with a spear.  And while God the Father sent Him (John 17:3, 17:18) and sacrificed Him (Acts 2:23) and it was pleasing to God to crush Him (Isaiah 53:10).  Not pleasing in a sadistic sense of but in the sense that God was satisfied with his sacrifice which is evidenced by the fact that he got up on the third day (Romans 4:25).  Christ’s sacrifice served one purpose, to reconcile sinful man back to God so that all that believe on Him will be saved and brought back into fellowship with the Father.  One man died so that all might live.  He did not kill anyone in the process, he did not die through selfish, self-serving means but He tasted death for everyone (Hebrews 2:9).  There is the subtlety that is often overlooked.  God has never asked us to sacrifice ourselves because there is no sacrifice that we can give that would equal or be greater than the sacrifice that Jesus made.

Should Christians be zealous to the point of sacrificing ourselves in the name of Jesus?  Our idea of sacrifice is totally different.  We deny ourselves certain pleasures not because of great discipline but because we understand that we cannot be in the world and of the world simultaneously.  We die a figurative death like the kernel of wheat only to yield a 100-fold harvest both here and in eternity.  We sacrifice for the sake of others in that if we have more than others then we are to sacrifice to ensure that none goes hungry or naked.  That is the type of sacrifice that Christians are called to make.  Denying ourselves means not retaliating when the opportunity presents itself but humbling ourselves before God knowing that our reward will be great in heaven.  That is the type of sacrifice that Christians are called to.  What Jesus did at Calvary, none of us could ever do- but what He did on earth, we are to imitate his love by loving one another, not killing those that wrong us or disagree with us.  Grace and peace be upon you as you continue the Christian journey.     Egyptian

"God MUST Understand"...A Conversation With the Old Me

     Times have certainly changed.  I was speaking with a young cashier in Wal-Mart a while back and in the course of the conversation, she sounded very proud to be 18 and working.  She was also engaged and she mentioned that she was going to live with her boyfriend for a few years before they got married to make sure that they could tolerate each other being in the same house.  I thought to myself, “Wow, that sounds very strange, but then again it is not uncommon.”  Not to be a hypocrite, my wife and I lived together during the summer before we got married.  We both went to school in separate places and one summer she came to do a rotation in North Carolina.  We lived in my apartment and I must say that it was not a very good idea.  I make no bones about my former life and how messed up I was so I hope that I don’t offend anyone.  One of the reasons we got married is because I got tired of being a phony. Danielle got me going back to church and whenever we got there, I’d be in church feeling as guilty as sin because of our relationship and the pre-marital sex that we engaged in.  Truthfully and candidly, shacking is not marriage but marriage is no longer respected as an institution created by God.  In 2012, the prevailing attitude regarding marriage is simply two folks living in the same space and sleeping in the same bed.  No wonder that the divorce rate among Christians matches that of non-Christians.  Even though people get married in church, they sometimes forget that their vows are before God and not just the preacher and the witnesses.  Marriage has even been perverted to include same sex couples. 

     Crude behavior is much more acceptable now.  I can remember when I was a boy and I watched a movie called “Night patrol”.  It was a comedy that depicted a rag tag police force that was always up to some shenanigans.  It was rated R but was much raunchier than the R rating.  The language was obscene and the sexual references abounded.  The “Police Academy” series was probably inspired by this movie.  Other movies like the animated “Heavy Metal” and “The Adventures of Fritz the Cat” were also quite crude and offensive in retrospect.  Looking down the telescope of time, I can see where movies like Jacka**, the Hangover,  the Scary Movie series, the Adam Sandler collection (his movies are actually pretty offensive if you are old enough to understand the humor) etc. got their inspiration from.  It seems now that the more crude the movie or the humor, the more laughs you get.  I personally get offended now by much of the same stuff that I used to think was funny.  A teddy bear having sex?  C’mon folks.  I guess Paul was talking to himself in Ephesians when he said that there should be no coarse jesting or silly talk between us...then again, the people that make these movies probably think Ephesians is some sort of skin disease or something.

     There is no such thing as modest dress anymore. EVEN KIDS CLOTHES ARE FORM FITTING NOW! I catch the devil buying clothes for my 6 year old daughter.  I literally want to find the designer that created skinny jeans and knock him over the head with my bible!  Just kidding, but it is quite annoying.  I remember when spandex was used strictly for workout gear and not to wear to school, to church or even just out period.  If a girl wore spandex with nothing covering it up, which is the current cultural trend, they were immediately seen as an easy target for sex.  The thought was, “Any woman that comes out of the house looking like that MUST be easy or looking for a man.”  I remember when crack cocaine got a foothold in my neighborhood; spandex was common wear for those women that sold their bodies to get drugs.  Now, if you go to any college campus, high school football game or wherever, you can see young ladies sporting leggings with simply a short t-shirt to ensure that you get the full effect of the outfit.  Peter says in his first epistle that we are to dress modestly and that a woman’s beauty should come from the inside, not the outside (1 Peter 3:3, 4).

     What have also become common are coy attitudes regarding God.  We see God as nothing more than a granddaddy in the sky that is there to simply give us gifts and make sure we get home safely when we are on a trip.  I was reading “The Knowledge of the Holy” by A.W. Tozer and his chapter on the immutability of God is what inspired this post.  This particular chapter has a very salient point near the beginning- Tozer is quoted as saying this” God is perfectly holy, He has never been less holy than He is now and He can never be more holy than what He already is.” (Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, P. 49).  When I read this statement, it made me realize that my own attitude toward God used to be VERY BAD!  I mainly minimized God to justify my own desires and participation in sinful activities like pre-marital sex, excessive drinking, lust…etc.  An example of what a conversation would be between the 22 year old me with a Christian telling me about God’s holiness would have gone something like this:

Me: “God has to understand that times have changed!”

Christian: “Well, times may have changed but God has not changed at all.  The bible says in Malachi 3:6 “I am the Lord, I change not.”  Hebrews 6:18 says that God is immutable and His promises are immutable.  Do you know what that means?  It means that God cannot be moved from the position that He has taken.”
Me: “God can’t expect me to stay celibate with all of these women throwing themselves at me and all of these hormones!  Why did he make me this way only to stunt my access to the things that I like?”
Christian:  “Well, your attitude is quite cavalier towards sin.  Actually, God made sex to be enjoyed between a married man and woman.  Adam and Eve were the first couple and God said that it was not good for a man to be alone.  Sex outside of marriage is no better than two animals mating in the woods.  There is no intimacy, no spiritual connection between you and your partner and no real love.  It’s just a means to an end.  Not to mention 1 Corinthians 6:15 which says that every time you lay down with a woman you are becoming one with her and it is equivalent to lying down with a prostitute.”
Me: “God couldn’t possibly expect a young man like me to stay away from the vices of the world!  He must know that times are different now!  How could God punish me for something that comes so easily to me?”

Christian:  “Well, although you think that you are special and that there are new things happening, the bible says in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that there is NOTHING new under the sun.  Everything sinful vice that you like, people liked it in ancient history.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news to you but God is not going to change for you so that means that you are going to have to change to meet his standards.  God demands holiness, He says “Be holy as your Father in heaven is holy (Matthew 5:48).”  God also says through John the revelator in 1 John 2:16 that we are not to love the things of the world system: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.  What Satan is presenting you with young man is a trap that is a certain pathway to destruction!  Remember, sin does not pay a very high wage; the wages of sin is death.  It costs MORE to persist in sin and it costs NOTHING to accept the free gift of God’s grace.” 

Me:  “Holy?  Holiness is unattainable.  There is no way that I can be holy!  I love sin too much and people like you that always scream at people like me about being holy are just hypocrites!”

     At this point, I am taking the blog back over from the old me and to things straight.  That was me around 15 years or so ago: looking for loopholes, looking for ways to justify sin and looking for an easy way out instead of looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of faith.  I had a mental ascent to believing in Jesus but Jesus was not in my heart.  Today, by the grace of God, I can truly say that not only does God understand, God TOTALLY understands.  The problem is WE don’t understand!  God gave us a way out of the vices, the sinful attitudes and actions that fallen man seems to enjoy so much.  God gave us a way to fellowship with Him and enjoy Him that we don’t readily see when we have a downward view of God rather than the upward view that God demands! 

     God gave us Jesus, sent to earth as the standard bearer for the Father, sent to earth as the second person of the Trinity and sent to earth to bear the sins of all mankind.  For all that come to Him and believe that He is sent from God as the only begotten, that He is God, that God raised Him from the dead, they shall be saved!  All of their sins are forgiven the instant that they acquiesce and say to Jesus, I need your forgiveness and I desire for you to be Lord over my life.  The way out demands, in reference to the final statement above regarding holiness, surrender of my will and my perceived sovereignty over my life to the will of the Father.  The Way out demands that I get off the throne of selfhood and bow at the throne of Godhood.  In order to be holy, first we must be transformed and not only that, submit to the process of transformation.  Jesus said to Nicodemus that we must be BORN AGAIN in order to see/enter the kingdom of God and as a result escape the flesh and the corruption that comes along with it. 

    So, I guess this leaves us with a question.  What is your view of God?  Do you see God as holy and supreme over all things OR do you see God as limited in His power, limited in His ability and at your beck and call?  If you chose the latter, and believe it or not, many folks do, then you’ve got some serious soul searching to do.  The way that we view God will determine how we live our lives.  Often times, people that do not view God as the incredible Creator and master of the universe, see him as granddaddy in the sky that winks at the sins that we commit.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  God is holy and that alone demands our reverence.  He does not have to change with the times, He lives outside of time and cannot be placed under the demands of mankind.  He fully understands who, what and how we are.  Now it is time for you, if you have not already been enlightened, to understand exactly WHO HE is.  The Holy Scriptures would be a good place to start.  Grace and peace to you my brothers and sisters.

Pregnant By the WRONG Man

     We have all seen and heard stories about women that lay down with men that they only intend to use for sex and end up getting pregnant by them.  The same holds true for men.  Some men have gone into a woman's bedroom looking for one thing and nine months later they ended up with something else, a child.  There is only one way to make a baby which I will not elaborate on here but you all are old enough to know what I am talking about.  There are four steps: intercourse, conception, gestation and finally birth.  Between a married man and woman, this is a beautiful process and it glorifies God in that the created obey His command to be fruitful and multiply.

     There is a different take on pregnancy and birth in the book of James that is quite interesting.  James, in discussing temptation says the following in James 1:13-15:

"When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."

     James makes it clear that temptation cannot and does not come from God.  God cannot be tempted nor does God tempt.  Does God allow tests? Absolutely, but even in the case of Job, while God allowed Satan to test Job, He did not do so Himself because Job was innocent in his sight.  God does not pour out His wrath on the innocent, which is was Satan was trying to incite Him to do.  To make it even more plain, how can the One that is Holy and the One that tells us to avoid sin entice us to sin?  It does not compute. 

     James is very forthright as to where temptation comes from.   Temptation, in this case, must be understood in the context of temptation to sin.  The Greek word can also mean a test or trial.  Man is tempted when our own lusts draw us away and then we are enticed.  Let us think of this in very graphic terms.  Our lusts which are a consequence of our fallen nature and still exist even in one that is born again, basically drag us into a dark place where we are then enticed.  Enticed (Gk deleazó) is written in the Middle voice which lets us know that the enticement comes from an outside source.  So Satan uses our own desires and thoughts to push us past desire to sin.  This is the intercourse between Satan and our lust, after which something very strange happens.  We become pregnant with an illicit desire.  Once pregnant, once conception occurs, the next step in a logical progression is birth. 

     James indicates here that lust gives birth to sin once lust is coupled with the enticement of Satan!  This is interesting here because James uses this quite graphic analogy to illustrate something that happens when we do not stop temptation in its tracks.  Sin, once fully formed, leads to death.  Paul says in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death.  When we practice sin, when we live unrepentantly, the just punishment for that is death.  God would be less than Holy to have any other punishment for sin that death.  We saw this same scenario play out in Genesis when Satan tempted Eve.  There is one difference.  Because Adam and Eve were created in perfection, they did not have a fallen nature. Therefore, Satan had to initiate the entire situation from start to finish including implanting the lust, enticing Eve and eventually leading her to sin by disobeying God.

     We need to understand that as a consequence of the fall of humanity, lust naturally resides within man.  We are all born into sin.  That lust is intensified by Satan's enticement.  Lust is not always sexual but it always leads to sin.  We usually think of lust when we think of sex but you can have a lust for money, power, respect or anything that pulls you away from the Living God to pursue your own will.  It is any passion built on strong feelings.  The Greek word can be positive or negative but a positive passion will be born from faith whereas a negative passion will be born from within our own nature.

     How do we prevent this illicit spiritual pregnancy?  Thank God that there is "birth control" in Jesus.  Jesus showed us when He was tempted in the wilderness that whenever Satan seeks to entice us away from what God wills, we need simply to use God's Word to combat Satan's advances.  When Satan went after Jesus' flesh with things that Jesus knew would not endure (bread, pride, kingdoms), Jesus responded with the Words of the Spirit.  When Satan offered bread to abate hunger, Jesus replied that man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.  When Jesus was taken up to a high point and tempted to test God and cause the angels to come to his rescue (see Psalm 91), Jesus answered again from the scriptures, "it is written, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." (Deuteronomy 6:16)   When Jesus was offered the kingdoms made of brick and mortar, that He already OWNED might I add, in exchange for worship of the created being, Satan, Jesus said simply that we are to worship God alone!  Every word that Jesus spoke came from scripture.  Every word that we speak when we are at war with Satan should come from scripture (2 Cor 10:4).  Can you see why the Holy Ghost is so important in our lives?  He is the One that brings all things to our remembrance.  He is the one that gives us the words to say when we are under attack by the enemy (Luke 12:11).

     When evil or lustful thoughts enter into our minds, we are to take them captive.  Any thought that seeks to exalt itself above God, we are to take it captive to obey Christ (2 Cor 10:5).  The second the thought comes in, we are to take it captive because a wrong though will incite is to lust which then gives Satan the doorway that he needs to come in and entice us.  We are to stop the thought in its tracks and do not give it time to set up, impregnate us and eventually lead us to sin.

     Truthfully, if we are not worshipping God, then we are worshipping Satan.  Worship of God through Jesus Christ should lead to obedience, not disobedience.  No we will not live in sinless perfection but we will also not be driven by our lustful desires (Gal 5:16; 5:24) if we walk by the Spirit.  Use the spiritual birth control that the Father has given us in the Son.  Jesus has given us everything we need to be obedient to His word.  He also lived a life of perfect obedience while he walked in the flesh.  We must submit to Him as our Lord in order to truly bear fruit in keeping with repentance and for righteousness.  May God bless you as you walk in submission to His will and as you obey His Word by His Spirit.