Mark
14:38 “Watch and pray,
lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the
flesh is weak.”
Continuing Pastor Giglio's message : Just
like with you and I, If we could just be real with each other for a moment; if
we could just say today : “Here is the thing that I am struggling with.” … this
is my potential Pitfall. This is the thing in my life that, if if it goes
unchecked, is going to lead me to a place where my whole story can collapse and
my whole opportunity to honor God can be lost. It says to us that our collapses
don’t happen in one decision. They are a series of small decisions that maybe,
individually, don’t look insidious to us, but then, combined together over the
course of time, build a “pattern of life” that leads us to an outcome that we
really never saw coming at the very beginning of the journey. It starts with “low
hanging fruit” that we couldn’t resist … the enemy putting the temptation right
down at eye level; temptations that speak to those fleshly desires that are
unchecked in our heart and is the tool of the enemy to dismantle the
effectiveness and leadership that God has given us. The flesh, the God-rejecting
world system and the devil are a relentless enemy that constantly brings
temptation after temptation into our world. If they fail one time, then they’ll
come another time. If they can only take an inch today, then they’ll take a
foot tomorrow. If we resist on the right, then they’ll come on the left. They
just keep coming at our weakness with the “right” kind of temptation, on the “right”
day, at the “right” time. This is the card they play: “If you really love me,
you will do it.”, nagging the temptation until we relent, give in and fall.
Judges
16:28 Then Samson called
to the Lord, saying, “O Lord God, remember me, I pray! Strengthen me,
I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take
vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!”
In
the story of Samson’s fall, he was vindicated for the glory of God in the end,
and this tells us that we have not gone too far for God to intervene and use
our life again. That tells us that nobody has done to much that God cannot step
into our story and allow the Holy Spirit in our life again. But, it also tells
us that if we are on a path to destruction, then tonight is the night that we
need to jump off of that path and ask God for a Comeback in our lives. So
often, we look to God to do great things through our lives, but, in this
moment, we need to ask God to do the great things in our lives. That
takes two big steps. (1) IT takes transparency and vulnerability. It takes us
saying to the people around us; “I look strong, but I am weak. You may see the
good in me, but there are things that I am harboring in my heart that, if they
are not brought to light, are going to be the end of me.” We don’t want a Comeback at the end of the day
that brings glory to God, we want the Comeback today that saves me from that
day and puts me on a path of truth with God and other people. (2) Be willing to
receive God’s path and walk on it. That may not happen overnight nor be a one-time
decision for you. To open our lives in transparency, to open our lives in honesty,
to admit to close people around us, then actually get on a godly path and walk
on it rebuilds our life and thoughts of living openly with whatever our
weaknesses are. That is going to put us in “the zone” of experiencing God’s
power now, so we don’t have to hope and rejoice that we get it at the very end
of the day.
Psalm
51:10-12 “Create in me a clean
heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not
away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to
me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
If
you feel like you’ve blown it all up, God’s Spirit can still come on you and
there can still be a Comeback in your life. It is not too late for you. What is
it that we need to address today? What do we need to invite Jesus into right
now? And what Comeback do we need to call on God for in this moment, so that we
can live and not die? And in doing so, proclaim to the next generation to come,
the goodness and the faithfulness of our God.
In
Christ, Brian
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