Developing Self-Control: Recognize Your Weaknesses!

2 Tim. 2:22 >>

Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts.

Genesis 39:6-13 >>

6 So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn’t worry about a thing—except what kind of food to eat!

Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, 7 and Potiphar’s wife soon began to look at him lustfully. “Come and sleep with me,” she demanded.

8 But Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. 9 No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.”

10 She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. 11 One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. 12 She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house.

13 When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled,

[C] – CONTEMPLATE / MEDITATE ON: I will ponder on the questions below and reflect on myself.

1. What made Joseph successfully flee from the temptation of sin was that he NEVER entertained the thought of the sin in his mind. He always put it away the second it tried to knock at the door of his mind.
2. Some ways I’ve become weak and given up on the temptations is when I delay in fleeing or casting out sinful thoughts in my mind.
3. According to Timothy 2:22, I must run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts and instead pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love and peace, and also the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts! =D

Developing Self-Control (4): Don’t Give the Devil an Opportunity

Ephesians 4:26-27 >>

And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.

2 Samuel 11:1-4 >>

David and Bathsheba

1 In the spring of the year, when kings normally go out to war, David sent Joab and the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites. They destroyed the Ammonite army and laid siege to the city of Rabbah. However, David stayed behind in Jerusalem.

2 Late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath. 3 He sent someone to find out who she was, and he was told, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her; and when she came to the palace, he slept with her. She had just completed the purification rites after having her menstrual period. Then she returned home.



1. Giving no opportunity to devil (Ephesians 4:27), means not to put ourselves in tempting situations or entertaining thoughts of things that we are not supposed to think about, because it all starts in the mind!


2. David fell by sleeping with someone else’s wife. He failed to have self control when he first stayed behind in Jerusalem (instead of fighting) and had nothing on his mind and saw a beautiful lady and actually sent her to come over! X____X Obviously not a wise thing to do…what did he expect to do?! Even before the actual sin happened, he was inviting it.

3. I can improve self-control in doing what I need to do rather than procrastinating. In order to not give the devil an opportunity I need to be wise with my time management and surrender it to the Lord. 

Despise Sin and Separate Yourself

Friday, 6 March 2009

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 –
The Temple of the Living God

14 Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? 15 What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil[a]? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? 16 And what union can there be between God’s temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said:

“I will live in them
and walk among them.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
17 Therefore, come out from among unbelievers, and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord.
Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you.
18 And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

[C] – CONTEMPLATE / MEDITATE ON: To help you in meditation on God’s word, answer the questions below honestly before God.

1. Some characteristics of an unbalanced partnership [verse 14] include having different faiths, or one being righteous, another being wicked.
2. When I am with friends or in a situation where God is not respected and sin is tolerated I need to come out from among them and separate myself. I can’t even “touch their filthy things (v.17).”
I HAVE experienced this kind of situation!
3. What can make it hard to say ‘NO’ when a situation or a friend tries to lure me to sin is if I am weak or lazy or the peers are very annoying and refuse to take no for an answer. Yet I want to make a new commitment to God that He is first, and there is no other. Today I will guard my eyes, mouth and heart from the things that are disrespectful toward the Lord. Let us not fall into the trap of all kinds of compromises that can eventually strip off our commitment, standards, and integrity for the Lord. We have the power to say ‘no’ to those situations that can make us unfaithful toward the Lord. It is understandable that we will not be completely separated from this world, because we still live in it and our desires to sin still persist. Yet God gives us the power to defeat that desires and to replace them with the desires to please the Lord.

False Love

False Love

2 Samuel 13:1-6, 10-16

Amnon and Tamar
1 In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David.

2 Amnon became frustrated to the point of illness on account of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her.

3 Now Amnon had a friend named Jonadab son of Shimeah, David’s brother. Jonadab was a very shrewd man. 4 He asked Amnon, “Why do you, the king’s son, look so haggard morning after morning? Won’t you tell me?”
Amnon said to him, “I’m in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.”

5 “Go to bed and pretend to be ill,” Jonadab said. “When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.’ “

6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, “I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand.”

10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand.” And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. 11 But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.”

12 “Don’t, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. 13 What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.” 14 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.

15 Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Get up and get out!”

16 “No!” she said to him. “Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.”
But he refused to listen to her.

—

1. Amnon didn’t show Tamar true love. He didn’t care for her best interest. Instead, his attraction to her was based on lust, selfishness and evil intentions. To start, it was his sister, but also he was impatient and raped her. I think he objectified her, but once he was “satisfied,” he hated her.
2. Amnon hated Tamar afterwards, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was his conscience convicting him and making him feel guilt. But in either case, he hated her afterwards.
3. My motivation when expressing love towards others I hope is pure! I think it’s pure, but only God knows. I just pray that He work in me everyday to purify me more and more. Some weaknesses that has made me fall into fleshly desires is impatience, perhaps contempt also. I want to make a strategy with the Holy Spirit to resist all temptation by first consulting with Him and listening to Him and not being impatient. I also need to FORGIVE always!

In short, 1 Peter 1:16 says, “Be holy because I am holy.”

Don’t Harden Your Heart

Hebrews 3:7-15

Warning Against Unbelief
7So, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
8do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the desert,
9where your fathers tested and tried me
and for forty years saw what I did.
10That is why I was angry with that generation,
and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ “[a]

12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15As has just been said:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”

—

1. When I am confronted or asked to do something by my parents, head of the family, spiritual leader and someone in authority, I thinkI act okay – obediently. If I still don’t understand, I may ask for clarification, but for the most part I cooperate and try not to have any motivations of rebelliousness.
2. I think I’m considered an obedient person.
3. What causes someone to be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (v.12-13) is that they don’t want to be ordered around. They feel they know best and that they don’t want direction from someone else. Or maybe they are power-hungry. Or maybe they have a sinful, unbelieving heart.

Always Show Compassion

James 3:17,
17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

Jude 1:22-23,
22Be merciful to those who doubt; 23snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

1 Peter 2:9-10
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

—

1. The kind of character I need to have when facing others who are uncertain and easily influenced is a merciful character that does not judge or hate them, but hate the sins that “contaminate their lives”and for some, “snatch” them out of the “flames of judgment,” but being careful with others  so that we also do not become contaminated.
2. When seeing people live in destruction or have no morals, I should not judge them but hate their sin and have compassion on them. I should try my best to pray for them -that the Holy Spirit touch their lives,and also show them love and good and kind deeds.