I am working my way through an excellent book by Dr. Russell Moore entitled Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph and Christ. Below is a snipper from the chapter entitled Starving to Death where Moore gives excellent Biblical insight into the root issues behind sin and how Satan works in the lives of believers. It’s refreshing to see a book that highlites the reality of the war with sin and temptation in the lives of believers and how God often uses that struggle to conform us more into the image of Christ. I also admire Moore’s understanding of how important it is for the community of the church to bear one another’s burdens through a biblical understanding of the struggles with sin in believer’s lives. I highly recommend this book. It’s well written and also gives some very excellent O.T. insight that often has the reader saying, “oh now I see the connection!” I know I’ve already had some “aha!” moments as I plow through this book.
Enjoy this snippet:
Sometimes we actually empower Satan by the way we speak of Christian conversion. We highlight the testimony of the ex-alcoholic who says, “Since I met Jesus I’ve never wanted another drink.” Now that happens sometimes, and we should give thanks for God’s power here. But this liberation is no more miraculous, indeed in some ways less so, than the repentant drunk who says, “Every time I hear a clink of ice in a glass I tremble with desire, but God is faithful in keeping me sober.”
The girl with the same-sex desires might conclude she is doomed to be a lesbian because she isn’t drawn to boys and still fights her attraction to girls. Family members who have to cut up their credit cards to keep from spending every paycheck on what they see advertised may conclude they’re just not “spiritual” enough to follow Christ because they still war against their wants. Nonsense! You are not what you want. You are who you are. And that’s defined by the Word of God. It might be that God frees your appetite from whatever it’s drawn toward, but usually he instead enables you to fight it. This might go on for forty days, for forty years, for an entire lifetime. That’s all right. There must be room then in our churches for a genuine bearing of one another’s burdens when it comes to appetites. Pretending the appetites are instantly nullified by conversion is a rejection of what God has told us – that we are still in the war zone.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Romans 1:16
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