And that brings us to the second lesson from the key
verses -- how to combat the lies and strengthen the spirit. How do we avoid
falling into the temptations of the flesh? We must watch and pray! The first part
of this is watch. It seems sometimes that we are not very good at guarding our
own lives. We lock the doors to our homes, install alarm systems, and raise
guard dogs but when it comes to our very souls we fall asleep like the
disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. Proverbs teaches us:
Guard your heart above all else,
for it determines the course of your life -- Proverbs 4: 23 (NLT)
When dealing with matters of the
heart we are dealing with our flesh. Jeremiah actually says that the heart is desperately
wicked above all things! Yet we constantly defer to our feelings instead of our
beliefs! God says no to a relationship and we stay in it because of some
worldly view about love. God says that you have nothing to fear yet we give in
to our feelings of anxiety. God says that He is working all things out for our
good yet we give in to our feelings of despair and hopelessness. Here is some
deep theology beloved. God does not want to know how you feel -- He wants to
know what you believe! David must have been scared facing Goliath. The three
Hebrew Boys must have been scared about the fiery furnace. Yet they stuck to what
they believed over what they felt. Part of the problem today is that we are not
being taught correctly sometimes. Paul taught Timothy:
Watch
your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will
save both yourself and your hearers. -- 1Timothy 4: 16 (NIV)
The life part is most of what we have been speaking
about today. Deferring to the spirit over the temptation of the enemy or the
world. Unfortunately the term doctrine has almost become a dirty word today in
modern Christianity. The lines get blurred and the world is infecting the
church while well intended leaders compromise one small piece of doctrine at a
time. Without doctrine we are just making it up as we go and recreating God in
our own image. There is no power over sin like that. There is no victory. There
is only the illusion of salvation and the feel-goodness of our souls while our
spirits starve to death one piece at a time. We must be vigilant of our lives
and our doctrines, while we guard our hearts.
And the greatest weapon for us is prayer. We have a direct
line to God Himself! Yet when the temptations come, we tend to shy away from
God because we know deep down what we are considering is wrong! There is
virtually no point in keeping watch on our lives if we are not going to go to
God in prayer to help with the temptations! And that is how the enemy wins.
That is how the world wins. That is how the weakness of our flesh overcomes the
willingness of our spirit. What did Jesus do here in the Garden of Gethsemane?
He had a temptation to want to avoid what lay ahead of Him. He did not run from
the Garden. He did not allow His flesh to devise a means of escape. He got down
on His knees and prayed to God -- take this cup from me if You can but not my
will but Yours be done! Never be embarrassed about being tempted beloved.
Everyone gets tempted. Never be embarrassed at the thought the devil or the
world planted in your head. Take them to God in prayer and make them obedient
to Christ. Remember Gethsemane and how Jesus prayed so hard He sweated blood. He
appropriated for us the victory on Calvary but we have to walk in that victory.
We have to win the battle between the spirit and the soul.
Reverend Anthony Wade - April 5, 2012
