Have you ever felt weighed down by sin?
Have you ever been discouraged by the fact that the enemy is trying to tempt you with sin after sin after sin?
Me too.
In fact, that’s been a huge part of my life lately. The enemy is throwing this sin in my face over and over. A sin that I will NOT give into. And it’s embarrassing to be honest. I feel ashamed. But why? It doesn’t have anything to do with who I am! It’s simply something the enemy is trying to bring me down with so that my ministry is not effective.
In confessing this sin that I’ve been struggling with to world race leadership, 2 teammates and a few friends to help keep me accountable in this area I’ve begun to realize many things about it that I never had before….
The devil’s main goal is to grab a hold of every person’s life so that they do not trust in Jesus. For me, it’s too late. I already gave my life to Christ many years ago. So his second goal? To prevent me from bringing other people to Jesus and to prevent me from obeying Christ to the best of my human ability.
This is when sin temptation comes in.
Every bad thing that happens in our lives can be used by the devil as an attack in our lives. And sometimes he tries to tempt us specifically with something in order to pull us away from Christ, to take our eyes off of him and to prevent us from bringing others to Christ. When the devil comes to God asking for his permission God is able to say yes or no to the devil as to whether he can mess with us in that way or not.
So imagine this, the devil approaches God, “Hey God, so I see Kierstin is trying to make a difference in people’s lives this year and you know she’s learning a lot about who you are and she’s doing a lot of good things for you but I really don’t like that. I think if I can just get her to fall in this one area, she won’t be following you the way she is now. Which is good for me because then her ministry won’t be affective and maybe she’ll even walk away from you altogether. So can I tempt her with this sin?”
And then I imagine God looks at the devil and kind of sarcastically chuckles. “Of course. Go for it. You see, I know Kierstin. I mean, I know everything about her and I KNOW and trust that this sin you’re trying to tempt her with will not bring her down. It might be difficult for her but she won’t fall. She loves me and your twisted games will not pull her from me. So yeah, sure, try and pull her away but I’ve got her in my hands still. I’m holding her, she feels me holding on to her and she knows right from wrong. This will not waver her faith in me. But you can try.”
And I just like to imagine that he just kind of laughs a little at the devil again. Like “go for it but you must be stupid if you think that’s going to work.”
What?!
Ok so yes, God allowed the devil to tempt me in this way but why? Because he KNOWS and TRUSTS that this sin will not take ahold of my life and that my faith in him is stronger than the temptation the devil tries to use against me.
I’m sorry but that’s HUGE! That’s an HONOR! God trusts me so much that he’s like “yeah devil, you can mess with her but I know my girl and I know that her faith in me is stronger that that.”
And it is.
So now what? Well, this sin doesn’t just go away now that I’ve realized this. But it is easier to combat when I look at it in a new perspective. I know who my God is and I know who I am! And I know that this sin is not who I am or what I stand for. So I will fight. I will fight so hard. And I will not give up. I have teammates and friends fighting for me and with me in this. I have people on my squad and back home praying for me. This sin will not take a hold of my life.
