Charisse is crawling—and dang, she can move. She is so cute the way she scoots across the floor at blazing speed…however,
She seems to always want to migrate towards the lamp cord. We’ve told her no. We’ve taken it out of her hands. We’ve turned her away from it—yet still she seems to always find her way back there.
I was watching her do this the other day and actually tried pointing out to her that she literally has dozens and dozens of toys all throughout the living room…yet she is determined to get a hold of the one thing she cannot have.
Isn’t that the way temptation works? satan is SUCH a genius when it comes to this…he manages to take our eyes off of all that we do have and focus them on the one thing we don’t (or can’t) have.
He did it with Adam and Eve in the garden. (See Genesis 3:1-7) They had access to every single tree in the known world…all except for one…and he took their eyes off of all they had and put them one the one thing that God said they couldn’t have.
AND THEY FELL FOR IT!
Charisse falls for it, Adam and Eve fell for it…and we will as well if we are not careful.
- He will take our eyes off of our spouse and put them on someone else.
- He will take our eyes off of our possessions and cause us to be jealous of the success of others and covet what they have.
- He will take our eyes off of all the kind deeds that someone has done for us and cause us to hyper focus on the fact that “they didn’t return my e-mail/phone call.”
- He will take our eyes off the fact that we are incredibly blessed with more than we could have ever imagined and cause us to fear giving 10% to Jesus for the advancement of His kingdom.
- He will take our eyes off the fact that the church has been an incredible blessing to our family and cause us to not want to come back because someone gave us a dirty look or didn’t speak to us.
- He will take our eyes off of our wives and cause us to look at porn because, after all, we are men, we have needs, right? (Job 31:1!)
- He will take our eyes off the fact that we are called to go to one another and work out our issues and cause us to gossip and backbite one another.
- He will take our eyes off the fact that our bodies are the temple of the living God and cause us to abuse them through gluttony.
Temptation is DANGEROUS…allowing satan to put our thoughts on anything is DEADLY, James 1:13-15 points out the destructive downward spiral of sin.
Is their junk in your life? I John 1:9 tells us how to deal with it! Let’s NOT crawl towards the things that we know are forbidden…let’s do what Hebrews 12:1-2 says. It’s NOT easy…we will struggle, but I Corinthians 10:13 promises us we can handle it!!!