Avoiding the Lure

I heard a sermon from Francis Chan the other evening. It was all about comparing temptation to God’s plan for us. It was a really compelling message, and it reminded me of some important things about my relationship with God.

God loves us so much. Francis, during the sermon, mentioned how we are not only God’s beloved children that he loves, we, as the church are also the bride of Christ. Francis likened sin to cheating on that marriage. I had never heard this comparison, but I thought it was good for the most part. It was a good challenge to think that that’s how poorly sin affects us. It keeps us away from the perfect love of Christ. It should make us wonder: “why would I ever do that”.

The devil sometimes puts thoughts in our heads that he blames us for them. He puts things out in front of us like fishing lures, and we have to learn to look past them. That said, it’s not a sin to be tempted. We often want to blame others for troubles, we want to blame God for how He made us. But the truth is that we live in a sinful world, but we also have to remember, as believers, that we are not of this world.

Honestly, there is no comparison, God is so much better than anything we could ever have from sin in this world. Feeding your sinful desires will only leave you with less. This doesn’t make it easier, I’ll admit. Satan personally does his very best to put lures, and temptation on our path. Here’s the thing, we have an all-powerful God, and if our God is for us then no one can stand against us.