I really love this one. It shows massive accountability. Have you ever done something and said well God is tempting me to sin, he wants to see what I will do? Then they do the thing and then they blame God for tempting them. I've heard it a million times, and probably did it a million times.
Well, here we are being taught that it it simply our own inner desires that are dragging us away and are begging us to sin. Satan simply uses our temptations to help lead us to fill it out. Once you ACT on that temptation is when it becomes sin. Sin then leads you to separation from God and without repentance can lead you to an eternity in hell. Yes friends, there REALLY is a hell and yes friends, you really can go there.
Let's stop sugar coating everything friends. Let's stop changing the word or arguing about what might be ok and what isn't. Do you really want to play with your eternity? Do you really want to play with your children's eternity? Alcohol always comes up and people like to debate, what is ok with drinking and what is not. Well Jesus's first miracle was turning water into wine and he drank, so it must be ok...that's the famous argument. Everyone and everyone says it. Well, let's take a look at what we do when we drink...we say things we normally wouldn't, we do things we normally wouldn't, we act in ways we normally wouldn't, and most don't stop at a sip of wine. Unless YOU are going to act in the same manner as Christ did in full capacity, when you say his first miracle was changing water into wine...and that is what you are basing your debate, then you really cannot compare the worlds drinking to it either.
I also (sarcastically) love how people make jokes out of the fact they are already going to hell, so they might as well live how they please. It's an excuse. No different than someone trying to quit smoking....you've heard all the excuses until they end up on an oxygen machine, fighting for a simple breath. Sin is the same...
Friends, the word of God is never there to condemn you, and neither are your Christian friends. The word is to enrich your life, provide fullness where emptiness once crept in. It is to bless you and keep you and your family in eternal safety. It is applied to daily life and you can tease and put down those doing it, but one day there will come a time where you are not going to be able to handle something alone, and you will understand the power of repentance and what sort of transformation it can do in your own personal life. God is amazing...and his lessons are worth it!
AND SO ARE YOU!
The Message 13-15
Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.