Today's Sermon

Given the title I knew this was one I needed to watch. Why are there times when I am still so enamored to sin when I know it leads nowhere good...when I know it won't bring true satisfaction...when I know it offers no peace or hope? I really want to understand my motivation for sin better. Behavioral modification is a dead end road because it doesn't change the heart. So, I want to learn why my heart goes where it does and how I can increase and deepen my heart's affections for my Lord.



Any movement toward freedom and life, any movement toward God or others, will be opposed. Marriage, friendship, beauty, rest-the thief wants it all.

So, it becomes the devil's business to keep the Christian's spirit imprisoned. He knows that the believing and justified Christian has been raised up out of the grave of his sins and trespasses. From that point on, Satan works that much harder to keep us bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in our own grave clothes. He knows that if we continue in this kind of bondage. . . we are not much better off than when we were spiritually dead. (A.W. Tozer)

Tough combination, isn't it? My flesh and Satan's continual temptations. It seems there is little rest from the battle. It explains why Jesus tells us to come to Him for rest because we cannot find it elsewhere. Piper adamantly exhorts us to make war against our sin but who really feels like making war 24/7? We are told to flee from temptation yet what good does that do if we simply flee from one temptation to another?

We have to flee to God. We have to keep our eyes and heart fixated on God. We have to press into and pursue God. It's our only hope. Yet, I struggle so much in doing just that. It concerns me at times. After all, through Jesus' death and resurrection and my heart's acceptance that He is my Lord and Savior, I am a new creation. But I don't feel very new a lot of the time. I feel like I still have to struggle with old desires and old ways and that concerns me. I take some solace in knowing that I am more sanctified now than I was 5 or 10 years ago. Sin doesn't have as powerful a grip on me as it once did yet the grip is certainly still there. So I do have faith that I am saved and that the Holy Spirit continues to work in me. But it is still way more of a daily battle than I want it to be.