TEMPTATION
Temptation is the desire to perform an action that one may enjoy immediately or in the short term but will later regret for various reasons. Why are so many Christians both old and young succumbing to sexual sin? We must remember that we as Christians live in a world that is filled with temptations, even our culture promotes temptation. By our own ability we cannot overcome sexual temptation because we are not as strong as we think we are.
…“By strength shall no man prevail”. 1 Samuel 2:9
Over the course of our existence many have fallen because they underestimated the power of sexual temptation. (1 Corinthians 10:12) warns us; “let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” God is saying to us here that the first step to avoid falling into temptation is to get rid of the ideology of “it
can't happen to me”. As the wisdom of proverbs says, pride sets us up for a fall. So many ministers of the gospel have found themselves caught in the web of adultery because of the attitude, “it couldn't happen to me”. Sexual misconduct by clergy is a devastating issue that reaches across all denominations, damaging the credibility of the church in its wake.
Rev. Gordon Macdonald, a wonderful pastor, and at one time president of intervarsity Christian fellowship shares in his Book rebuilding your broken world about a time when he was asked about how Satan might get him. He Answered:
All sorts of ways, I suppose; but I know there’s one
way he wouldn’t get me. “What’s that? He’d never get
me in the area of my personal relationships. That’s
one place I have no doubt that I’m as strong as you
can get. A few years after that conversation my world
broke wide open. A chain of seemingly innocent
choice became destructive and it was my fault.
Choice by choice by choice, each easier to make,
each becoming gradually darker. And then my world
broke…in the very area I had predicted I was
safe…and my world had to be rebuilt.
Here is a man of God with a good marriage who had written books on family life and yet fell into adultery. Why? Because he thought it couldn't happen to him and left this part of his life unguarded. If David who is “a man after God's own heart” Gordon Macdonald, and many other strong men and women of faith yielded to sexual temptation, it could happen to you. Almost all Christians, especially Christian leader, who have fallen to sexual temptation, would tell you that they did not think it could have happened to them.
FLEE FROM SEXUAL IMMORALITY
(1 Corinthians 6:18) warns us to “flee sexual immorality” it's not something we toy with, you should not wait around to see how far you can resist or to discover how strong you are. You sho