Surely not me, Lord!

Ok, so the past few posts have been pretty lovey..feel good stuff..encouragment. Well I don't think today will be, because what I read this morning hit me and will probably hit some of you as well.
James 1:13-17 talks about temptation and it states that God does not tempt us, that all temptation comes from within us. My Bible commentary pointed out that we often look for someone or something else to blame for our "not so Godly" actions instead of ourselves.  We might say "I couldn't help it, everybody's doing it, it was just a mistake, nobody's perfect, I didn't know it was wrong,..etc."Basically, we try to jusitfy our wrongdoings.  But, the Message version says "We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare up of our own lust." Yikes. I think that's pretty straightfoward.  It's not the million excuses I come up with, the real culprit is myself.  James goes on to describe how lust (not just sexual lust, but selfish, unholy actions, etc.) lead to sin, which lead to death.  If we continue giving into those temptations, eventually they will consume us and we will be headed down the wrong path...the path to death.

Well this is a pretty heavy passage, and I started praying "Well God, I don't have a problem with this, I'm not tempted to have an affair, or to drink my life away, or to kill someone" (my mind automatically went to the "big" no nos) But then I got hit with this:

"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-- having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them."

-2 Timothy 3:1-5

Whoa. I may not be haunted by my past demons, but I sure do fall into a number of these patterns.  How often do I chose to be selfish, ungrateful, and unforgiving? How often do I chose to let my pride control my actions? How often do I chose to gossip and slander fellow children of God?  And the self control? Now that's a big one, because if I could exercise self-control more, maybe I wouldn't be caught up in these other displeasing attitudes and actions. What was reinforced to me today is that I need to start choosing to take the higher road when I am tempted to carry out these lustful desires.  Who really benefits from these anyways? I sure don't, and I leave a string of hurt people, missed opportunities, and a restless spirit because of my own selfishness.

I'll leave you with this:

 

1 Corinthians 10:13  tells us that when we are tempted, God will provide us with a way out.  So from now on, I would challenge you, and myself to look for that way out. It doesn't say He'll provide an easy way out, but there is at least a crack to break through. Maybe we just need to start looking for that little light.