Desperate Joy

  Have you ever stepped to the edge of a massive cliff? Or encountered a rattlesnake while you were out hiking, and felt the choking thrill that comes with it? It is natural to feel fear when we step close to the edge of a cliff or cross paths with a snake. This sense of danger has been programmed into our brains and bodies. We intuitively know that certain things will hurt us. Nobody has to tell us to be afraid of heights or of certain wild animals. This is good and natural and was built into us by God for our protection. Fear is not the only instinct that God has given us to protect ourselves. He has also given us guilt and shame. Guilt and shame work much like fear. It is a warning signal, an alarm in our soul to warn us when we are stepping into dangerous territory, when we are moving away from God and into sin. God is the source of life and love, and sin is anything that pulls us away from him. Sin always produces destruction and chaos, sometimes this destruction is mino...

  In my family, as with most American families, we gather together at Thanksgiving and have a ridiculously large feast. We will have roasted and smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, sweet potatoes, green bean salad, stuffing, several types of pecan pies, apple pies, pumpkin pies, and assorted other appetizers, snacks, and candies. By the end of the day, I will be sprawled out on a couch, in a daze, stuffed to the gills. Every craving and appetite fully satisfied, and to excess. You could ask me, "You want a peanut butter cup?" (which is my favorite candy), and I would say, "No, I couldn't possibly eat another bite!"  In that state of satisfaction to near stupefaction, any form of food and drink holds no appeal for me. Gordon Ramsey himself could show up to offer me a gourmet meal, but I would have no desire for it because I was so full. In that state, the thought of eating more almost becomes unpleasant. The devil often comes to us with many delectable treat...

  We are joined in a mighty battle between the spirit and the flesh, Satan, and our Savior. Every day we are pulled away from our Savior and into sin. Many of us make commitments to follow Christ, and yet we struggle with sin and addiction. We want nothing more than to walk in righteousness, but we war with our flesh and unclean desires. The Bible is clear that either we will be killing sin, or sin will be killing us. "The wages of sin is death..." (Romans 6:23) But one of the paradoxes of Christianity is that we do not fight this battle with sin and Satan with aggressive, forward action. It is less of an assault, and more a surrender. We do not go forward in a direct assault. We do not throw punches, thrust swords, or lob grenades. We lay down our weapons and stop fighting. Of course, to surrender to sin is to plunge ourselves deeper into sin and death. Sin must always be resisted, but as we turn away from sin, we look to the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ and we surrender ...

  Addiction always has its roots in sin, and that sin in turn springs up from our own lustful, selfish desires. This is the idea that we have been looking at in James 1 over the last few posts. There is a process that sin always follows. We sometimes feel like we just stumble into it, or it just happened, like a meteor falling from the sky. But if we learn to pay attention, we will see that it happens gradually, step-by-step. The medieval Christian thinker Thomas a Kempis digs deeper into the ideas we saw from James and offers us some useful insight into the process that sin takes: "First there cometh into mind a bare thought of evil, then a strong imagination thereof, afterwards delight, and evil motion, and then consent. And so little by little our wicked enemy getteth complete entrance for that he is not resisted at the beginning." First, we have the "bare thought of evil."   The world, the flesh and the devil will all send images, thoughts, and ideas into ou...

  King David Sees Bathsheba Bathing, James Tissot (1836-1902) Each and every one of us is in the middle of a battle for our hearts and souls. Satan is perpetually on the prowl, seeking to devour us. He is our greatest enemy and if we do not resist him, we will be snared by his temptations and fall into destruction. The Apostle James described this process of temptation, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (James 1:13-15) In the previous post we examined how temptation and enticement work. Lust always originates in our own hearts and minds. We can never blame the Devil or God for our sin, every temptation originates within us, from our own unclean desires. Satan comes along with his enticements to seduce us ...

Much of my adult work has been spent in the classroom, teaching junior high and high school students math and science. Often one of the challenges I faced was getting students to take responsibility for their own actions. The missing homework is always a classic example. I have not heard, "My dog ate it!" but have heard a litany of other excuses, "It's my sister's fault!"  "It's my parents’ fault!"  There was always something or someone else to blame. This is a common theme in addiction as well. We blame shift or point fingers at others and do not want to take responsibility for ourselves. We blame our family of origin, we blame our wives and kids, we blame our employer, Biden, or Trump. Some of us even dare to blame God. Everyone else is at fault, except us. We want to look to others, to the external environment to find the cause of our problems. We know we have issues and that our behaviors are out of control, but we fail to realize that th...