Scripture Challenge 2010: Temptation

There is a brilliant scene in the movie "Family Man." Nicholas Cage plays a man who gets a second chance to live the life he left behind. Don Cheadle plays an angel who helps him figure out what is really important. At one point, the angel appears as a clerk at a carryout. He gives a customer too much change for her purchase, and waits. She knows he's given her change for a $10 bill when she's only given him a dollar. What will she do? He waits. She smiles and leaves with the money. The angel looks to Nicholas Cage's character with so much disappointment and says "Man! She just compromised herself, and for what? Nine dollars!" Temptation...it's so easy to compromise our very soul. And for what?

Our own desires.


And this is where the enemy can get me every time! What may be temptation for me may not be temptation for someone else. It's always a custom order, tailor-made to lure me away from God's will for my life.

*The temptation to do what God doesn't want me to do.
*The temptation to NOT do what God does want me to do.
*The temptation to say the thing I shouldn't say.
*The temptation to NOT say the thing I should say.
*The temptation to make it...



All About Me!

The writer of Romans chapter seven could have been reading my mind! "For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do...For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do- this I keep on doing."

Why? Why? Why?

Is there a remedy for my sinful nature? Yes. Pastor Greg Lorie said this once: "The devil wants you to feel remorse and regret, but never repentance." And why? Because in repentance, we have forgiveness of sins. For me, I've found that the more time I spend in Bible study and the Word, the more likely I am to feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit...

*to invite the co-worker to church.
*to reach out to the hurting neighbor.
*to give money to the charity.
*to hold babies in the church nursery.
*to teach a Sunday School class.
*to send a card to someone.
*to tell the clerk she undercharged me.
*to spend my money wisely.
*to pray for someone in need.
*to treat my body as a temple.
*to not utter the nasty retort.
*to try kindness instead of curtness.
*to repent when I screw up.

That apple may look juicy and delicious. But I know that it is really rotten to the core.

"The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise." Proverbs 11:30