Step inside

As for God, his way is perfect: The Lord’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him. (Psalm 18:30)

Have you ever wondered why you don't resist temptation on occasion? You were sailing along just fine, and then out of nowhere came this thought. That thought began to consume your other thoughts until it finally began to stimulate the formation of an action. Before you knew it, along came the full-fledged response to the temptation and it wasn't resistance! Just like that, you 'indulged' yourself in the sin you tried to resist for so long. How does this happen? It is usually because we take ourselves out of the refuge we find in Jesus. As long as we are safe in that refuge, we resist just fine. Step outside of those boundaries just a bit and the temptation can overwhelm to the point of full compromise.

His refuge? It begins with his Word. If you haven't figured it out by now, you can actually use his Word to combat many of those initial thoughts and keep on using it until those thoughts change. We often neglect the use of his Word to resist tempting thoughts. Another very important aspect of resistance is what we allow into our 'eye gate'. In other words, when we shield our eyes from taking in things they shouldn't, we resist better. A refuge limits our focus a bit, doesn't it? When we take refuge in Christ, we are asking him to put a shield over our 'eye gate' so that we don't allow things (images) to enter into our minds that can form the 'seeds' of action.

A refuge is only good when it is put to use, though. We can endure the storm in a refuge, can we not? What makes us think when the 'storms of temptation' come our way we can just stand out in the wide-open spaces and resist? We need the protection his shelter offers. Like it or not, we are weaker than we believe, more open to suggestions than we might think, and less 'intent' on good than we report to be! Temptation doesn't just catch us unaware. There are multiple warnings it is coming - we just ignore them. When the warning comes, it isn't too late to step inside the refuge. It is too late once the storm hits! Just sayin!