I am so tired of reading articles written by learned Christian men who constantly and consistently communicate a message of avoidance as the key to biblical Christian living. To communicate a message that teaches Christians that we are to wrap ourselves and everyone else in cotton and put blinders on, in order to live a victorious Christian life, will produce soft, vulnerable, immature, weak Christians. We are to be transformed into the mind of Christ. We are to be made able to stand in the midst of the world, wearing His armor; not hiding or avoiding the battle.
The problem is in our "wanter", not in the things that are all around us and will always be around us as long as we are living in this world. Do you understand the difference?
A person does not get fat because they eat chocolate cake. A person gets fat because they want to eat chocolate cake as often as they can. It is the appetite for it, not the cake itself that makes one fat. The answer in not found in avoiding chocolate cake. Certainly, that may work for awhile; but, as soon as you enter a room full of chocolate cake you will stuff your little face.
However, a person whose appetite has been changed will find that they can be in a room surrounded by chocolate cake and have no appetite for it.
That is victory! Let us be so full of the Word of God; the knowledge God; the love of and for God; His truths; His Spirit; His Wisdom; His beauty; that through these things He changes our inner appetite and we can stand in the midst of things that entice the world and find that God has transformed us so that we have no appetite for them and they have no power over us.
That is the power and reality of true Christianity!
"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. "
The problem is in our "wanter", not in the things that are all around us and will always be around us as long as we are living in this world. Do you understand the difference?
A person does not get fat because they eat chocolate cake. A person gets fat because they want to eat chocolate cake as often as they can. It is the appetite for it, not the cake itself that makes one fat. The answer in not found in avoiding chocolate cake. Certainly, that may work for awhile; but, as soon as you enter a room full of chocolate cake you will stuff your little face.
However, a person whose appetite has been changed will find that they can be in a room surrounded by chocolate cake and have no appetite for it.
That is victory! Let us be so full of the Word of God; the knowledge God; the love of and for God; His truths; His Spirit; His Wisdom; His beauty; that through these things He changes our inner appetite and we can stand in the midst of things that entice the world and find that God has transformed us so that we have no appetite for them and they have no power over us.
That is the power and reality of true Christianity!
"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. "
Comments
Pleased to hear that the important point came through inspite of the poor analogy.
Jonathan Edwards put it this way: "When a holy and amiable action is suggested to the thoughts of a holy soul, that soul, if in the lively exercise of its spiritual taste, at once sees a beauty in it, and so inclines to it, and closes with it. On the contrary, if an unworthy, unholy action be suggested to it, its sanctified eye sees no beauty in it, and is not pleased with it; its sanctified taste relishes no sweetness in it, but on the contrary, it is nauseous to it."
Thanks for popping in.