Lent 2022 Challenge

I applaud this challenge and am cheering you on! Keep checking in, and I will, too!

 

I'm doing a similar thing. I'll try to post here too

 

I was reading the Bible this morning and this caught my eye "After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you."
Deuteronomy 9:4
I need to remember that if I'm ever going to stop this, it won't be me that does it and it it won't be because I'm such a good person but it will be through God and because of His glory that I'll stop

 

God is so forgiving. I'm reading through the old testament at the moment and the rebellion of the Israelites keeps coming up but when we read it, we must realise that we are no better than them. God is still the same graceful God though

 

I agree with you. How incredibly merciful is God! Based on my miserly human capacity for forgiveness, I would not have stood by patiently while a sinner rebuked me daily for so many years, as I did to God. Why God withstood my sinfulness and waited patiently for me can only be explained by recognizing the unconditional love He has for each of us. A perfect love from a perfect Father; kind, wise, understanding and undiminished by our foolishness. Oh Precious Lord, thank you for choosing all of us visiting this site as a people to be saved and gifted with eternal, joyful, selfless, life.

 

What strategies will you enact to fight temptation?

 

I'm reading a book on sexual detox by Tim Challies and each chapter ends with questions and one question got me thinking
"Do you believe that Christ is willing to forgive you for this sin and that through His Holy Spirit He is both willing and able to free you from it?"
The answer must be yes and I need to remind myself of this over and over

 

After finding freedom from 50 years of PMO, I can testify that God is indeed willing and able to free each of us. However, I am convinced our efforts must be a partnership with the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit will provide the essential grace to inspire us but we must be willing to take tangible actions to prepare for the fight against temptation when it comes. God does not promise to remove all temptation; even Christ Jesus was tempted but of course He was prepared to fight it. This is the nature of my question, what strategies and tactics are you preparing for the fight?

 

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-works-through-good-resolves
Seeking the power of God to fulfill our good resolves does not mean that we don’t really resolve, or that we don’t really use willpower.

The engagement of God’s power never takes the place of the engagement of our will! The power of God in sanctification never makes us passive! The power of God engages itself beneath or behind and within our will, not in place of our will.

The evidence of God’s power in our lives is not the absence of our willing, but the strength of our willing, the joy of our willing.

Anyone who says, “Well, I believe in the sovereignty of God and so I will just sit back and do nothing” does not really believe in the sovereignty of God. For why would someone who believes in God’s sovereignty so blatantly disobey him?

When you sit back to do nothing, you are not doing nothing. You are actively engaging your will in a decision to sit back. And if that is the way you handle sin or temptation in your life, it is blatant disobedience, because we are commanded to wage a good warfare (1 Timothy 1:18) and resist the devil (James 4:7) and strive for holiness (Hebrews 12:14) and put to death the sinful acts of the body (Romans 8:13).

Second Thessalonians 1:11 says that it is by the power of God that we will fulfill our good resolves and our works of faith. But this does not nullify the meaning of the word “resolve” and the word “work.” Part of the whole process of walking worthy of God’s call is the active engagement of our will in resolving to do righteousness.

If you have lingering sin in your life, or if you keep neglecting some good deed just because you have been waiting around to be saved without a fight, you are compounding your disobedience. God will never appear with power in your will in any other way than through your exercise of that will; that is, through your good resolves — your good intentions and plans and purposes.

So, people who believe in the sovereignty of God must not fear to engage their wills in the struggle for holiness. “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24). Only strive in the faith that in and through your striving God is at work to will and to do his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

 

I've been thinking about sovereignty and how much is us to how much is God. Believing that God is sovereign doesn't mean we just sit back and do nothing but if we try to do it in our own strength, we will fail so I started to think about Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
If we truly believe this then even when we are tempted, we can be sure it is for our good and since 1 Corinthians 10:13 says "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it" we can be sure God has given us the way out and this is through His sovereignty. If we cling to the fact that God is in control and this temptation is for our good then the good that can come from this is that we can actively think on the power of God and how He is the one doing the fighting even through our fighting and so we grow in faith and knowledge of Him. The last passage that I'll put here is Philippians 2:13-14 "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose."
We fight because it is God who works in us and sitting back doing nothing is unfaithful because we can't think that it is God working

 

My devotional was quite good this morning
Trials and Temptations as Preparation
The 40 days of Lent are designed to mirror Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness. Following after Jesus, we too must confront temptations and trials that may derail our commitment to God.

From an Africa Study Bible application note:
Christians are real people living real lives in a real world and often suffer loss, pain, or failure like everyone else. It could be a time of physical loss or season of spiritual dryness. How do we respond to trials and temptations? What is God doing when He allows us to suffer?

Jesus also went through trials and temptations. All three of Satan’s temptations were to get Jesus to use His divine powers for selfish purposes (Luke 4:3). Jesus was tempted to use His power in a self-centred manner for physical gratification (1 John 2:16), to acquire material wealth and power (Luke 4:6-7), and third, and probably more common to people in public leadership, He was tempted to perform a dazzling feat to attract crowds of amazed and attentive onlookers (Luke 4:9-11). This is pride (1 John 2:15). Satan behaved as if everyone has a price. His temptations implied that this world is what matters most. Are these not the very temptations we face as Christians?

In Romans 5:3-5, Paul wrote, “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.” All of us will face times in the wilderness of temptation, but Jesus showed us we can overcome.

Today:
In these first few days of Lent, what inner desires or external pressures have you noticed distracting you? Using a concordance or index or online tools, look up the words “temptation”, “trial”, or “test” and you will learn how people in the Bible withstood different trials and temptations.

 

day 4 completed, did my bible study and meditation

 

I gave in to m last night. The fantasies were just too much but it's the first time in a while I've reached the two week mark