“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” ~ James 1:13-15

I was thinking today about how quick we are to justify ourselves when it comes to sin. We really are. When you think about it, God doesn’t give us directives for the sake of His own power trip. His directions, His guidance, His mandates even, are all FOR OUR OWN GOOD. He gives them because He loves us. If God says ‘no’, it is probably a bad idea.

We go to great lengths to protect our physical and material well-being. When the sign in the shallow end says ‘no diving’, we don’t dive. Why not? Because we know we could get hurt and it’s a bad idea. When an email scammer asks for our social security number, we don’t give it. Why? Because we know we could get robbed or have tampered medical records, and it’s a bad idea. When we want to cross the street and there’s traffic, we don’t cross. Why? Because we know we could get hurt – it’s a bad idea.

We have an uncanny sense of self-preservation when it comes to these things. Yet spiritually, we repeatedly put ourselves directly in harm’s way. We tempt ourselves, we don’t hold our thoughts captive, we see no problem in self-justification when it comes to a sin we ‘want’ to commit. Why is our spiritual well-being less important than our physical? Isn’t the spiritual the one that’s eternal? Yes there’s forgiveness in God. That doesn’t mean we should go around taking advantage of Him.

We need to guard our spirituality the same way we guard our physical safety. We need to equate it with being literally in harm’s way. We need to grasp that concept and walk in it. I wonder how different our walks would look if we did? If you need prayer to stay on track, or if you have a testimony of righteousness paying off, I want to hear about it! So write to me at being.rebekah.a@gmail.com. God bless!

~Rebekah A