Parents usually work hard to provide their children with every advantage available to help them become successful adults. Because we're Christians, we will especially want to provide counsel and help in their spiritual lives: building up their knowledge of God and His Word, encouraging them in their love for Jesus Christ, and establishing a healthy prayer life. No matter how good our relationship with God is, we'll desire our children to have better ones and we'll instill within them the importance of godly fellowship and corporate worship. We'll want them to serve the Lord with their whole heart, mind, soul, and strength (Mark 12:30). Too often we are forced to stand idly by and watch them simply fall away as they grow older and become responsible for themselves.
That brings us back to Samson who we looked at the other day. Samson is a prime example of such undesired falling away. He had everything going for him ... godly parents and godly upbringing; but at some point Samson began indulging his weakness and gave in to his lusts. The attractive sexual temptations of the culture around him began to take its toll and the Bible records several instances where Samson gave in to these lusts. He lusted after a pagan woman and broke God's command (and His heart) by marrying her even after his parents had warned him (Judges 14:1-3). On another occasion (which almost led to his murder) he indulged his weaknesses and he survived that instance only because of his supernatural strength. And of course the most famous example of this type of giving in was with the pagan Delilah, the ungodly woman he truly loved. As the consequence for indulging his lust, he paid a very high price. He was captured and blinded by the Philistines.
Left unbridled, sin will completely saturate and consume our lives. Others around us that we love are quite often affected or hurt by our actions as well. The first step in avoiding what befell Samson is making ourselves fully aware of our own weaknesses. Then, admitting that we are helpless to overcome them on our own, we must turn to God for help. We must remember that God is the only one with the sufficiency to rescue us. He knows us better than we know ourselves and He has the wisdom needed for every situation. With this perspective, we will be victorious over our weaknesses and able to obey all of God's commands even those for which we don't possess the innate strength to resist.
********
We had our small group meeting again this morning and I am really enjoying it. I say that every week I'm sure, but it's been such a nice change of pace for me. And it's been fun getting to know everyone a little better. (The munchies are nice too!) Evelyn always has the best tasting things to eat. Also, I tried one of her herb teas (something about tangerines I think) and it was really delicious. It had been quite a while since I'd had a cup of tea and it was very nice. I had never had that particular flavor. Very yummy!
We had a good weekend although I didn't really get anything done. Church Sunday was really upbuilding although my granddaughter wasn't able to make it. I really missed her. The sermon was very good. (As usual, praise God!) And the evening celebration was fun too. Lots of praise songs and fellowship.
We had a good rain Saturday night. We got 1.5 inches in a nice soaking rain. (Naturally it would rain because I washed my car on Friday.) So when I got up Sunday morning I went outside and hosed off all the leaves and junk that had fallen on my car. And so I didn't waste Friday's hard work. Well the sun just came out extra bright, reflecting off the top of the evaporative cooler and hitting me square in the face. I hadn't realized we had some scattered high clouds hiding the sun at times.
I think this is all I'm going to write today since I got such a late start due to going to my small group this morning. Then after getting home I had to do a little housecleaning (my morning chores and vacuuming). I have so much that needs to be done but I just don't have the energy for it today. I'm to the point I think where I have so many things needing to be done that I'm paralyzed from not knowing where to start. You ever have that problem?
No comments:
Post a Comment