after attempting to walk Jesus for the past 9 years and almost 4 months, i have come to realize that the whole ‘putting to death my flesh’ thing is quite difficult. in fact, some days i look at myself and think i am way more screwed up then i was when i first met Jesus. and i know thats not true because i know that God is just making me more aware of my brokenness. and i know that i desire attitudes-thoughts-standards-selfishness-etc that is not what God wants for me.
i am becoming more and more aware of what temptation is and what it aint.
last night i was sharing with some students about the Scripture where Jesus commands us to be perfect (its in Matthew 5:48). not just pretend to have it all together and put on a good front, but to actually be perfect. it is kind of frustrating, especially since it comes after a long list of standards that are quite difficult to acheive. adding perfection to that list of impossibilities is really just adding a cherry atop an ice cream sundae of a ‘yeah right good luck not gonna happen this lifetime’ goals. and thats okay because God is teaching me truths about that – even last night talking with some students forced me to look at it differently.
and i know that Jesus wouldnt tell me to be perfect if He didnt see me already being perfect at some point down the line of my story. not necessarily this life – in fact most definitely while i am still operating in this broken world in a broken shell – but He sees me as already perfected by His grace. thats a cool thought.
so then i was thinking about this concept of temptation and how God doesnt necessarily tempt me but allows me to be tempted. which, as i wrote in a seminary paper this past weekend, is a little bit of a sham if you think about it because God created me and designed/allowed me to be tempted. no – im not calling God a sham. and yes – i trust His creation and plans and purposes for me. but it really makes you wonder why He lets us be tempted. it has to have something to do with Him getting glory and joy at some point in some manner that i havent fulled vetted or comprehended yet. and im okay with that for now. i like that Jesus is a mystery.
all this was in my brain.
and then i got some monkey wrenches thrown at me this past week that really has gotten me to thinking. one set of thoughts came from a book by Elmer Towns entitled ‘praying the Lord’s prayer’ that i had to read last week. let me just illegally quote some things from Towns that makes my brain hurt.
it is in connection with the Lords prayer, specifically the section that says ‘lead us not into temptation’. bet you didnt see that coming. he was talking about how in early Christian life one temptation might really eat at us, but then God builds us to allow us to overcome it and that test is no longer an issue for us.
“that temptation is a toothless paper tiger. that test is no longer suited to our spiritual maturity, so it means nothing.”
i am a big fan of realizing that there are now many toothless paper tigers in my life that no longer mean anything to me. they are no longer an area of disgust and distraction.
the tests grow as we grow. just like in first grade and fifth grade and eleventh grade and in college our teachers test us according to what we should know at that level. this book suggests that God allows testing similarly. during each season, it appears that the temptation is the greatest its ever been, but looking back you now see how different stages have prepared you for the next.
the second monkey wrench was a pair of devotions from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest. you can read them online if you’d like. the pair come from days september 17 and 18 in the devotional.
so why do we struggle with certain temptations? Chambers presents that “many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.” i dont very much like this statement. because either way we get tempted. maybe i should be such a sissy.
“temptation is not something that confuses me for a while, and i dont know whether something is right or wrong.” i wonder how often its not actually something that would have held us captive until we let it. that is hard to munch on.
too often students and friends and myself strive to not do bad things. but i think that is such a silly, small-minded goal. that is so easy to not do bad things. lots of people dont do bad things. i think God wants more from us than just to not do bad things. i dont think Jesus died so we would merely be good boys and girls. “satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things – he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God.”
temptation allows for the possibility for us to be robbed from being valuable to God. not that we are worthless when we sin – or are we?
i like that i dont have it all figured out and that God is consistently teaching me more about me and Himself. i pray that we will fight for conversations together that celebrate who God is as He continues to manifest Himself in our lives.
