Burning Fire—Holy Light

Well, if I’m going to be honest, I’ve been struggling lately. Someone wrote me a letter and said a few things I really didn’t want to think about… but God is good and helped me to pray and consider those things, causing me to get my eyes back on Him and off of myself.

It helps that I also have friends that share with me about their own struggles. I am not the only one who struggles with sin and feels trapped. That is what sin does to us. It doesn’t matter what the sin… and of course, the enemy of our souls wants us to feel hopeless and defeated. For me, its been the challenge to forgive someone and to be willing to love God’s way. As long as I refuse to cooperate with God, I become more and more trapped in my sinful attitude, and make it worse by hiding in sinful behavior to try to escape thinking about God and what He has done for me… truthfully, sometimes I don’t WANT to forgive.

I suppose that is the battle for us all. Do we really want to give up the sin that so easily besets us? The pleasures of sin, do indeed, temporarily, satisfy. I think, on the surface, struggling with a physical sin may not look as major or minor as a spiritual sin…we tend to classify into lesser and greater sins. But they are all the same and they all separate us from God. All sin does indeed satisfy something, whether it is spiritual, physical, emotional, or psychological—and some of us are more prone to one temptation than another.

For example, Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread. That is no temptation for me, not even close. Why? Because I can’t do it to begin with. But to hold a grudge, justify myself, and look good in my own eyes—that fills a deep need for love and acceptance. So the temptation not to forgive someone is very strong. It justifies myself, and keeps me from seeing my own responsibilities in the relationship, and keeps me from looking at God who has forgiven me of far deeper hurts.

In the same way, every sin we battle fills a need in our lives. The problem is, it fills that need in the wrong way. The reward is temporary, and every time we yield, we feel worse about ourselves… and so we get into a vicious cycle that won’t let us go and we feel helpless to get out of.

And there is the lie of the devil. We can get out. It’s actually quite easy. We just have to keep our eyes on Jesus. The problem is, although promising an eternal reward, when we initially look at Jesus, it hurts, and it hurts terribly. His righteousness is a holy fire that sears our hearts and we hurt with the guilt and pain of what we’ve done. And that is why repentance is so important… it’s only when we literally turn our back on the sin, and say NO and refuse to go back down that path, that the pain begins to pass and we are able to bask in that holy fire as wonderful life-giving light.

And we have to keep ourselves bathed in that light, Each time we take our eyes off of Jesus… we are in danger of hearing the lies all over again, and the temptation grips at us again, until we once more turn to Jesus. Eventually though, because we are His, He brings us victory and He does bring us to a place where we can resist that temptation.

Then He takes us deeper and we discover the depths of sin in our hearts… until every day is one constant clinging to our wonderful Lord and Savior who loves us so much He will never let go of us and never give up on us and HE is determined to bring us home victorious.

If you’ve been struggling like I have been, may these thoughts be an encouragement to you today.