1 John
1:8-9 “If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
This
week, our small group Bible Study continued in our video series by Pastor Louie
Giglio titled “The Comeback”. Louie used the analogy of the visiting the Grand
Canyon in Arizona for the first time and standing on the rim looking at the magnitude
and expanse chasm of that mile deep and wide gorge, realizing the power of what
happens over time. That is how the enemy works in our lives. That is the nature
of temptations. It is not likely that we are going to be “taken out” by Satan
in a day. It’s more likely that we are going to take little steps, day by day,
to construct a path and build a habit that paves a highway that is going to
lead us to a place that we never really intended to be in our lives.
John
10:10-11 “The thief does not
come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may
have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. “I am the good
shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.”
We
have to be honest and ask : “What is the river running through my heart?”,
meaning what is the temptation that potentially, over time, is going to “take
me out”. Is it a “River of Life” that is
leading me to abundance? Or is it a “River of Deception” that is ultimately
going to steal away from me my very life? We are not going to wait until the
end of the day, when the collapse comes, to say, “God, I need a Comeback.” We
are going to ask for the Comeback now, right in the middle of the story. The “Comeback
of God” awakens us to a new path; to a path that leads to life.
Luke
11:9-10 “So I say to you,
ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will
be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds,
and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
A
lot of times in our life, we need a “Comeback” because of the circumstances
that we find ourselves in, or because of the decisions of other people. Maybe,
it’s a diagnosis that we did not see coming. Maybe, someone else made a choice
that affected our life, one way or another, and we need God to intervene. Not
because of any decision of our own necessarily, but of the circumstances that
we find ourselves in. But, there is a different set of variables! We talk about
that place where we are, exactly where we are, because of the decisions we
have made. And we pray that there is a “wake up call” for all of us, so that we
can ask God for His miraculous power and mercy to intersect us right where we
are; especially if we are in a place that nobody else really knows about and a
place that ultimately is going to lead us to a major collapse.
That’s
what we see in Holy Scripture with Sampson in the book of Judges, chapters 13-16.
Samson was a leader of God’s people and one of the judges of Israel. He had
great strength because of God’s power on his life. He was a huge warrior for
God, but Samson had a weakness. Outwardly, he had great strength, but,
inwardly, he had a weakness for women. He fell for Delilah (which her name
literally means “low hanging fruit”). In Samson’s weakness, the enemy (the Philistines)
put Delilah.
Let's continue this great study by Pastor Giglio on a comeback from temptations on the next post. In Christ, Brian
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