Now before I start, I want to encourage you to listen to Lesson 8: The Cycle of New Life in this series of videos if you have not done so already. What I am doing in these videos is teaching a school of discipleship based on my book Building Your Spiritual House. Each lesson is intended to build one upon another. You can watch them out of order and get a lot out of each individual lesson, but if you watch them in order and follow along in the book you will get a more balanced view of what I am trying to teach.
The lesson you are about to listen to is going to challenge your concepts of modern American life concerning sexuality, prosperity and the vanity of American culture. The series of videos you are watching is my personal journey based on the Bible and how I have attempted to live my life the way Christ has called us to live. I am sharing more than just theory, but 30 years of struggles, failures and victories that I’ve experienced. I hope that you will share my journey and as you do that you will find your path that God has for you. I’m not being legalistic in this video, but I am showing you clearly from the word of God the way that God has created us to function in this present age especially around our sexuality which is something that all of us have to face.
Today we are covering Lesson 10 Part I: A Lifestyle of Repentance. I have a lot of information on this lesson so I had to divide it into two separate lessons. In the last lesson we ended, talking about the salvation of the soul. The soul is the interface by which we reflect Christ within us to others. I gave you the example in the last lesson that the soul is like the screen on our cell phone that displays Christ within us and when it is cracked it needs restoration.
Jesus said our goal in this life is to first love God with all of our hearts and souls. Then out of that love we are to lay down our lives for others walking with them and helping whomever we can along our journey. In this world we have relationships with many different people: working, school, friends and family members. All have different levels of intimacy and commitment. However, the most important relationship that we have is the one we have with Father God.
Our relationship with God is the key to living a fulfilled and meaningful life in this body.
There are many things in this world, which can hinder our relationship with God from growing. Living in a lifestyle of repentance will help keep our hearts humble, adaptable and changeable grounding us in the love of God. Repentance is an important key. Repentance keeps the ground of our hearts soft and fertile so that the seed of God’s word will produce fruit in our lives.
Just like any relationship, at times there will come difficulties, which will test the strength and bond of that relationship. When it comes to our relationship with God the problem is not God, but our hearts. The Bible says that God does not change his mind about how much he loves us. The cross forever demonstrated how much the Father loves us so since he doesn’t change then if our relationship with God grows cold it's not an issue with God, but with our hearts. It is why we are told in Proverbs 4:23 to:
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23 (ESV)
As we’ve seen in previous lessons, I’ve shown you that the children of Israel were delivered from Pharaoh and the nation of Egypt. After the deliverance from Pharaoh and the Egyptian armies by the Passover sacrifice and the baptism in the Red Sea then God brought the children of Israel into the wilderness. Now just after this great deliverance the children of Israel had their hearts tested. It’s in the difficulties of this life that our hearts are tested and our relationship with God is forged into a deeper abiding faith. Christ in us is forged in the wilderness.
In Acts 14:22 The apostle Paul encouraged the disciples to continue in faith and told them that it’s through much tribulation that we enter into the kingdom of God. The word tribulation means pressure and in this world you are going to have a lot of pressure thrown at you to not continue moving forward in your faith. The wilderness is a training ground where our faith learns to grow. The wilderness is where the turbulence or the pressures of life try to break up our walk of faith, but as we press on Christ within us grows and we mature in our faith.
In the last lesson we talked about how our faith grows from children to young men and then to fathers. The stage of young men is the stage where we learn to have a faith that overcomes. John gave us the key and it is keeping the word of God hidden in our hearts. Just like salvation is not through our own self effort in like manner we can’t overcome Satan, the world, or our sinful nature through self-effort. John said in I John 2:14 that we are strong because the word of God abides in our hearts and that’s how we get the victory. Many don’t want to walk through the wilderness however the reality is that you don’t get that choice since it’s the path along all of our journeys. You will go through the wilderness whether you like it or not.
Jesus was God manifested in human flesh, but he was also a man. As a man Jesus was tested just like us in the wilderness and had to confront his enemies. John the apostle was a man with great insight into the very heart of God and was very familiar with the enemy’s territory. He was the author of the gospel named after him who wrote I, II, III John and the book of Revelation. He was the apostle who loved Jesus deeply and was very intimate with him. In his first epistle he says, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one I John 5:19. We must understand the enemy’s territory, because it is here where we will find the hindrances that will try captivating our hearts and keep us from fulfilling our purpose. I don’t want us to focus on Satan or spiritual darkness, but we need to be aware that in this present age we are living in enemy territory.
We live in this world surrounded by enemies to the cross of Christ.
We have been born again by the Spirit of God through the kingdom inaugurated through the victory of the cross and that needs to be our primary focus. Our goal in this life is being transformed by the Spirit of God in our hearts to display the glory of God. It is the enemy of our souls that will try to keep us from fulfilling our purpose in this life. There are three main enemies that we will encounter along our journey. They are constantly present to harass us, create conflict for us, and put obstacles in our pathway. It is impossible to escape any of them completely as long as we live in this body and this present age. The three main enemies that we will face are: Satan, the world and the flesh.
Let’s first look at Satan. Satan attempts to carry out his diabolical plan of world domination through an organized scheme of deceit. Like a spider, he is always weaving a new web trying to catch unsuspecting souls in his traps. Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 6:11 to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. The Greek word for schemes is methodia from which we get the English word method. Satan is not stupid. Like a lion on the hunt, he along with the evil spirits under his command continually works on new methods to capture their prey. If they are successful in capturing your attention and distracting you from God’s direction, then they can gain some level of control over your life.
The spiritual warfare of our time is the battlefield of the mind and it’s what we call information warfare.
Unless you throw your cell phone in the river or don’t attach to a computer it’s hard to escape the onslaught of information warfare that we experience today. The phone you have in your hand is not the enemy, but it has the potential to immanent great darkness depending on what is allowed on it. Satan’s desire is to blind the minds of people, keeping them captive under his deceptive power through moral transgression or to define it simply as sin. When people are living under the bondage of sin their minds become blinded to the glory of God.
The eternal darkness designated for Satan and his spiritual forces to which scripture refers is essentially a moral darkness, but its cause is not simply the absence of light, it is the absence of God, who is light. Paul the apostle spoke of this in II Corinthians 4:3-4 by saying that even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled or hidden to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving. As believers we live in this world, but we are not of this world. We have been bought with the blood of Christ and delivered from Satan’s power. It is through baptism that we are totally identified as covenant partners with God and delivered from this world system. However, as we walk along our journey this side of the second coming of Christ we are in a spiritual struggle against the god of this age.
It’s Satan’s desire to blind the minds of humanity, so that they will worship him, whether knowingly or through ignorance. As we have seen, according to the word of God, the world around us is under the power and control of the evil one. Drug abuse, sexual immorality, murder, wars, sex trafficking and perversion has saturated this world, while godliness is under tremendous assault. Millions of unborn babies are eradicated in America and around the world. I can mention the rise of occult activity, increase of false religions and an onslaught of informational deception aimed at captivating the human soul.
Satan is called the god of this present age, and he takes advantage of man’s innate need to worship. Man was created with a heart designed to worship the living God. When that void in the heart is not filled with the Spirit of the creator then it will be filled by something. Let me take you to a South American soccer game and you will see the people literally worshipping the players.
Over the internet, millions of people worship sex as they interact with pornographic images on their phones, computers and headsets. What about those who worship rock stars, actors or athletes? What about the inordinate affection some people give to various spiritual leaders and politicians? This is worship because the word worship in both the Old and New Covenant simply means to bow down or to humble yourself before someone as an act of respect before a superior being.
These examples are what the Bible calls the worshipping of idols and Satan is the unseen power, which causes people to be drawn to idol worship. Idol worship is not just an Old Covenant issue where people bowed down to physical idols. In 1 John 5:21 we are exhorted to keep ourselves from idols. An idol is something that wrestles for our attention in our hearts.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. 1 John 5:21 (ESV)
Satan is a deceiver! He is a spiritual being that is wrapped in deceptive darkness, and he will come to you in ways that if you don’t have spiritual discernment, you will accept his lies. He is not some little guy, dressed up in red with a long tail and horns. In Genesis 3 Satan used a serpent to approach Eve. The serpent was much smarter than all the other animals of the field. He attracted the woman by being such a wise and attractive creature. Satan always makes himself and sin look attractive. He comes as an angel of light to lead us into his dungeon of moral darkness.
Satan’s main weapons have always been and still are deception and temptation.
Satan was able to convince Eve, through his subtle and cunning speech that what was forbidden by God, would be good for her. It’s the postmodern lie of relativism which says truth is whatever you make it. Satan was the first post-modernist who destroyed morality through relativism where there are no absolutes, but just the mushy grayness of man being his own god. We see here that just as Lucifer’s original choice to do his own thing had drastic results, so did the choices of the original man and woman.
Adam was originally given authority over the earth, but he delivered it into Satan’s hands when he disobeyed God’s commandment. This left a spiritual vacuum into which Satan could set up his own authority and continue to deceive. That’s when Satan became the god of this age. In II Corinthians 4:4 Paul describes Satan as the 'god of this age' who is always trying to blind people to the truth of God's love, grace and saving power. This has been an age long battle which continues up to the present time.
The second enemy that we must confront is what the Bible calls the world. The world is an ungodly system built by unregenerate man.
In the original Greek language, the word for world is kosmos from which we get the word cosmopolitan. Kosmos can mean the physical earth, but in the context that I am using the word in this lesson I am using it as the present condition of human affairs in alienation or separation from and in opposition to God and his kingdom. It is a system that is governed by demonic powers which tries to dictate the way man thinks and acts attempting to control humanity. Yes, it can look very appealing, and it can even do good, but ultimately, it’s a system built on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The center of worldly systems is man who can do good and evil, but ultimately it is corrupt and will come to an end being superseded by the one man Christ Jesus and his eternal kingdom. When Satan rebelled against God he was cast out of heaven and down to the earth, it doesn't mean that he became limited to the physical earth, because he is not a material being, but rather a spiritual being.
In the Bible, the word heavenlies includes three levels. In II Corinthians 12:2 Paul speaks of the third heaven. The third heaven is beyond our physical reality, and it is the eternal dwelling place of God where His throne is located. It’s not a physical location, but a spiritual realm that can only be accessed spiritually. No one can tell you where heaven and the throne of God is located.
It is my belief that heaven is not somewhere out in space past the universe where time keeps expanding at the speed of light, but in a different dimension.
A dimension that the Bible says is more real than this physical dimension that we live in. It is connected to this dimension because we know Jesus after his resurrection and ascension come into our dimension even walking through walls. We know that angels come into our dimension so there are pathways from our dimension into the heavenly dimension and vice versa.
Paul talked of these mysteries, and he experienced it, but could not explain it. The reality of this age is that there are things beyond our understanding that we will only truly understand when we are fully in the presence of God. The third heaven is surrounded by uncountable myriads of angels (Hebrews 12:22b) who are worshipping the father always and obeying His instructions. Jesus is also in that dimension at the right hand of God (Hebrews 1:3, 4:14, John 14:2,3).
The kingdom of heaven which is the spiritual life that flows from the other dimension where God is at is also present in this spiritual realm flowing from the throne of the lamb through the person of the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). When we drink in the river of God’s spirit the Bible says we are literally tasting of the age to come Hebrews 6:5. Jesus told us to pray that God's will be done on earth as it is in his dimension or heaven (Matthew 6:10). It is His ultimate desire to transform this present creation (Romans 8:21) and eventually bring a "new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells" (II Peter 3:13).
The second heaven is what we call outer space, the region where the stars, sun, moon and planets abide. It is part of this physical creation. Then we have the first heaven, which is the consciousness that surrounds the earth. It is from the first heavenly realm that Satan has set himself up as god of this age attempting to dictate to the consciousness of mankind. It’s my opinion that UFOs are simply manifestations of spiritual demonic activity in this realm. I can’t prove it, but if aliens ever bring a message that denies Christ and claim they are our saviors then remember I warned you. Ephesians 2:2 says that Satan is the prince of the power of the air.
Jesus said in John 3:8 that the "wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So, it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
In this text it’s talking about us who have received the spirit and how we are moved by what you can’t see with your natural eye. We are spiritual beings who live in a body.
Satan and demons are spiritual beings, and they are looking for a body or an interface to carry out their deeds. Satan is called the prince of the power of the air. He operates in the realm that immediately surrounds the consciousness of mankind, which the Bible calls the `heavenlies'. His goal is to corrupt and control the mind of man through a masterfully woven scheme of deceit. It doesn't matter if you are in New York City or the Amazon Forest, Satan has set up a blanket of deception to try and blind your understanding to the liberating truth of the gospel. It is evident that since the time of the early church, and especially with our modern flood of information warfare the battle has increased tremendously.
The main battlefield is for the soul of man. It is a battle against your mind to control what you think, affecting your emotions and trying to mold your determination. Satan and his demons are spiritual beings and to carry out their deeds they need a body. God created man to rule the earth and for God or Satan to carry out their plans they have to use humanity.
The real action is not what you can see with your physical eyes, but spiritual forces all around us. In the dimension beyond what we can physically see with our natural eyes is where the real action originates. Do you see radio waves or Wi-Fi running through your house? No, you don’t. How about 5g transmissions? No, because it moves by the power of the air beyond what we see with our eyes. We live in a spiritual world, but trapped in a physical body.
The continuous stream of information in our society since the introduction of the Internet makes the scope of the battle much more intense for the affections of man.
If you don’t understand the spiritual warfare that is going on in your head, then you will be overcome by it. It's why John told us to test the spirits in I John 4:1. We must develop spiritual discernment if we want to be victorious over the enemy.
The third enemy that we want to look at is the flesh. Satan and the world can be termed enemies from without, who come against us through the avenue of persecution, deception, temptation and all types of assaults. However, the flesh is where the rubber meets the road. The flesh could be termed the enemy within if we allow it to dominate our spiritual lives.
Discipleship is a pathway of learning how to deal with the flesh, but we have to first get an understanding of what is the flesh from a Biblical perspective?
As we look at the Bible, we will soon discover that many times in scripture the word flesh is not necessarily referring to our physical body. You have to look at the context in which the word is being used to determine if it is referring merely to our human body (II Corinthians 7:1), outward ordinances of the Mosaic Law (Galatians 3:3) or man living independent of the redeeming work of Christ (Romans 8:8).
The Gnostics were a heretical group during the first century, which taught a false concept concerning the makeup of man and the material world. John in his gospel and epistle confronted the false doctrine that the material world is evil. Gnosticism had many variations, but it basically taught that anything that was material or of this physical world was evil, yet everything of the spirit was good, therefore Jesus could not have come in a human body. It’s why John said in I John 4:2 that by this you know the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
The practical result of the Gnostic doctrine in the early church and today is that people teach that your physical body is evil. The result leads you to either give in to the unrestrained cravings of our unredeemed bodies since we are powerless to overcome, or live as an ascetic monk to brutalize the body, bringing it into subjection through self-effort since to enjoy the material world is evil.
I want us to take a holistic approach which recognizes that although this age has been corrupted by sin and is under satanic control, we are not to live lives detached from creation. Jesus came to redeem not just mankind, but eventually even the created order itself (Romans 8:19-21). We are to live in this world, which means we can enjoy ourselves without being subject to idolizing its pleasures, power and corrupting practices.
Jesus himself as the pattern son gave us an example to follow. Spirituality is not detaching ourselves from life's experiences or withdrawing from our communities. We don’t have to be spiritual Essenes, or Amish that withdraw into their own communities having no contact with the corrupt outside world. We are to affirm creation by finding a sense of holiness in the here and now without having divisions between the sacred and secular in our lives.
The makeup of man is debated in modern Psychology, but it really is an ancient debate. In Hebraic thought, the soul refers to the whole person or individual as a living being.
I Thessalonians 5:23 teaches that man is a triune being made up of spirit-soul-body. Looking at the tri-unity of man helps us to understand that we are a spiritual being that lives in a body. Paul called our body a temple or a clay jar that houses our true self made in the image of God. Man is one whole unit, and we are to function as a person living wholly to God.
The whole purpose of the coming of Christ was to bring redemption to man and creation, which have both been marred by sin. We looked at Satan and the world, but what I want to address now is how sin or the flesh affects our walk and fellowship with God. We need to fully understand these areas so that we can learn how to cooperate with the Spirit's work, restoring us into our full redemption found in the work of the cross and living victorious over sin's power.
William Barclay, who is a recognized Greek scholar, wrote a book called Flesh and Spirit. In a section called The Enemy In The Soul, he examines the way Paul uses the Greek word sarx which is translated flesh. Paul views the sarx as the enemy in the battle for the soul. Barclay gives several uses of the Greek word sarx. The flesh is the great enemy of the good life, and of the spiritual life of the kingdom of God.
If we take this as a general statement, then it is exactly here that we see the difference between body and flesh. The body can become the instrument of the service and glory of God — the flesh cannot. The body can be purified and even glorified, the flesh must be eliminated and eradicated. It is with the flesh that a man serves the law of sin (Rm. 7:25). The flesh cannot please God (Rm. 8:8). Worse than that, the flesh is essentially hostile to God (Rm. 8:7).
The flesh is simply man living independent of God.
The Phillips Translation calls the flesh the unspiritual nature. The Weust translation calls the flesh the sinful nature. I like the way the Weymouth translation interprets the word flesh and when it fits the context, I will be using the Weymouth’s translation. He refers to the flesh as the 'lower nature' when referring to living independent of Christ. Romans 6:12 talks about sin reining in our body.
Our bodies are unredeemed, but not sinful. However, if we fail to reckon ourselves crucified with Christ, then our bodies can become the vehicle by which the lower nature dominates us.
If we allow this to happen then the works of the flesh can have a detrimental effect upon our lives as I taught in Lesson 2: What is Man? If you remember the lower nature is Satan’s food. Man was made from the dust of the earth and God breathed His Spirit into this clay jar causing us to become a living soul. The reason spiritual darkness wants us to walk in the lower nature is because it’s where the kingdom of darkness gets its power.
Like vultures, demons feed off of the lower nature of man and when we allow that to happen they are able to eat our lunch.
Just like God, Satan and demons are spiritual beings and need an interface to connect to this physical world. According To Ephesians 2:11 the lower nature influences the soul to walk according to the course of this world. If we yield to the lower nature, then spiritual darkness can be displayed through the interface of our souls giving it an avenue to the physical world. However, if we learn to live in a lifestyle of repentance keeping our hearts humble, adaptable and changeable we will continually grow in grace and not be taken captive by Satan, the world or the flesh.
Now let’s look at temptation. The Bible says that Jesus was tempted just like us. I John 2:15-16 says do not set your affections on the world or the things in this world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. Jesus was tempted in the areas of the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life. The whole goal behind the Tempter is to cause us to take his bait.
If we take Satan's bait, then it will take us down a course other than the one God has designed for us.
We can look at Jesus and see that the Tempter tempted him, yet He remained on course. He is the pattern son, and we must learn from His example! At this point you are going to say, well that was Jesus, who was God manifested in human flesh. I am different!
I will admit that there is a difference between our state and the state Christ was in, when He was tempted. He was untainted by sin, and we are tainted, however, the Bible says that Jesus was tempted in all the same ways in which we are tempted. Though the temptation in the wilderness and the possibility of disobedience was real, Jesus, being sinless, did not have a sinful nature to which Satan could appeal. Tempted in all manner like as we, Jesus nevertheless was without sin. We, like Him are men, yet we live in unredeemed bodies that are still subject to the weaknesses of a fallen creation.
As sons of God, we have received a new divine nature with the Spirit of Christ living in us, but we still live in an age of excess and temptation.
Let's examine the three areas in which Satan in the wilderness tempted Jesus, because if we examine these, it will help us to understand the main areas in which Satan appeals to our hearts. He knows man and since he is the god of this age, he has devised such a system, which is very alluring to appeal to our 'lower nature'. Once Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, he was then led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to fast for 40 days. It's only by walking through the wilderness that we learn how to submit the areas in our own hearts that have not been completely surrendered to the cross.
The first area, in which Jesus was attacked, was the area of his fleshly lust or as I John 2:12 calls it the 'desires of the flesh'. Why do I say this? Because the tempter said, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread" Luke 4:4. Jesus had been fasting for 40 days without food. Jesus was a man, and his hunger pains were very real, not to mention the feelings of fatigue and discomfort he had in his body. This was a very real temptation to appeal to his appetite and lust.
I understand that Jesus was not tempted in this context, but if you will examine the Bible, you will see that food and sex are inextricably tied together. Paul in I Corinthians 10:7 exhorts us to not follow the pathway of the children of Israel in the wilderness, who continually yielded to the 'lower nature' and the world. It says that when Moses went up on Mt. Sinai to receive the law of God, the children of Israel, "sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play." The term "play" here, as The Expositor's Bible Commentary brings out, means "drunken, immoral orgies and sexual play." They ate the food sacrificed to the golden calf and then many indulged in a sexual orgy in accordance with the pagan cult practices of Egypt. It’s just one of many examples I can give you.
Let’s look at Abraham’s oldest son Esau whose genealogy you can trace to the Arabic people of today who are located geographical in the Middle East. Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for a bowl of lentil stew because he cared more for instant gratification than the promises of God. In Hebrews 12:16 when the author mentions this story, it is interesting how he comments about Esau and the context in which it was written. In mentioning him, the author then exhorts us to not be an "immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal".
The Greek word for immoral is fornicator, which is someone who has illicit sex.
All sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage is fornication. The Bible many times calls it sexual immorality which is an all-encompassing term of any sexual activity outside marriage. Marriage is between a man and woman so any type of sexual activity outside of this context is what the Bible calls fornication or sexual immorality. Sexual activity demands covenant responsibility; it’s the way God designed it from the beginning.
I understand our modern minds have been overly saturated with a deluge of spiritual warfare in this area and it is because sexual activity is not just a physical act, but it’s equally a spiritual one. Satan knows the power of sexual immorality and it is one of the main foods that he feeds on to get power. He feeds on the lower nature of man and it is the mystery of lawlessness. When humanity gives in to the desires of the flesh strongholds are built in the heavenlies creating moral darkness in physical regions of the earth. Yes, this includes married swingers. Although you are married you are still defiling the marriage bed as in Hebrews 13:4, even if you both agree to the practice, it’s still adultery.
Paul told us in I Corinthians 6:18-20 to flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside of the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. I understand this is not a popular message, but it’s what the Bible teaches concerning sexual activity for the believer. The person who commits sexual immorality is thinking only about instant gratification. In the same way, Esau had more regard for the instant gratification, which came by fulfilling his natural desires than the will of God. If we do not control our appetites, then they will keep us from God’s purpose for our lives. This is what Paul said in Philippians 3:18.
"Many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction, WHOSE GOD IS THEIR APPETITE."
All of us have the God-given appetites for both food and sex. They are given to man for his enjoyment, however when they began to rule our lives, we have stepped over into the realm of idolatry and whether knowingly or unknowingly are in opposition to God. As I have ministered many times in rehabilitation centers, I always tell them that any addiction, whether it is food, alcohol, drugs, or sex all have their roots in the lust of the flesh. Addiction is simply when the lower nature is ruling our souls and whatever rules our souls the body follows. The body is just a vehicle for spiritual activity.
The Pharisees were focused on outward purity like the washing of hands and what type of food you eat.
In addressing their man-made legalistic doctrines Jesus said in Matthew 15:10-20: Hear and understand it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth this defiles a person. Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person.
If you take just a quick glance at the Bible, it is not hard to notice that many good people have fallen because they did not control their appetites. At the same time, you can look at the modern church and it is obvious that Satan has taken down many good men and women because of their refusal to deal with the lust of their flesh. When we look at civilization, as a whole we have to notice that one of the main issues that men and women must face is their sexuality.
Since the Sexual Revolution of the 60’s and 70’s we are now daily flooded with sexual innuendos.
At all levels of society, we have been bombarded with talk and demonstration about sex. At the same time, American culture has become obsessed with food. Try an experiment to discover how much food is a part of your life. Fast without food for a few days and then tell me how many times you are confronted with food advertising. You will be amazed at how many times you are encouraged to eat something, just to indulge yourself. We must eat and it is okay to enjoy your food. I like a good meal.
Food is for our enjoyment, but we must never let food fill a place in our hearts which belongs to God.
It is one of the main reasons we have an epidemic of obesity in America. It’s not just our food choices, it’s an issue of the heart. If you want to lose weight, then you need to learn to eat to live instead of living to eat. If food is controlling your life, then you can win the battle. Sex is for procreation and man’s enjoyment, but it is confined to the boundaries of marriage, yet there are even times when married couples should abstain from food and sex for seasons of prayer I Corinthians 7:5. How much control we have over ourselves in these two areas, is a barometer to see how much our appetites rule over us.
The second area, in which Jesus was attacked, was the area of the lust for power or as I John 2:12 calls it the 'lust of the eyes'. The eyes are what motivate our vision. Satan came to Jesus and "he led Him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, I will give you all this domain and its glory for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you worship before me, it shall all be yours. Luke 4:5-7. This was truly a golden apple because money is one of the things that the world worships, since it rules the kingdoms of the world.
Earthly kingdoms have always been ruled by whoever possessed the power of monetary exchange. Has the glory of New York City been the theater shows in Times Square or the New York Stock Exchange? New York has been the capital of the world for the last 50 years because of the monetary exchange going on at Wall Street. The accumulation of wealth is the accumulation of power.
At the height of every great empire in history, there has been a leader or group of people who have possessed the wealth through which they retained their power. If you owned the gold, then you controlled the military, religious leaders and governmental power. This is why Paul the apostle said that 'the love of money' is at the root of all kinds of evil. Money is not evil! Money is just an exchange for goods and services. We all need money to live in this life and fulfill our journey. However, when the sole purpose for our existence is the attaining of wealth we have departed from the faith and are on a quest for power.
Jesus said it is possible to gain the world and lose our soul. I have seen people, who were once on fire for the things of God, slowly lose their zeal as money gained their undivided attention.
Just after I was born again, the Lord really began to deal with me about my affection for money. You see, as a drug dealer I gained quite a love affair with money. I was instantly delivered from drugs, but the love of money took some time for me to part with. I still had several thousands of dollars in the bank and some other items, which I had purchased with drug money. It seemed that every time I was touched by the Holy Spirit He would move upon my heart and have me give much more than I wanted to give.
It took only a few months, and I realized that I had given all of my money away! At the same time, during this process, the Lord removed the root of the love for money from my heart, however it is still an ongoing work that I have to keep an eye on. How we relate with money reflects the way we relate with God. In speaking about money Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." If you have a problem with money, then deal with it and get your heart in the right place.
We can see that the third area of temptation and last time the devil came to Jesus he led Him to Jerusalem. The devil took Him to the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down" (Luke 4:9). This temptation came in a different form. This was not an appeal to power or to meet a physical need, but an appeal to His pride or vanity and ego. I John 2:15 defines it as the 'pride of life'. Pride is simply going another way than the way of the Lord. Ego is when we are at the center of our own lives. I’ve seen pride come in two forms. One form is thinking more highly of ourselves than we should. We think we are the greatest thing and look down on others. The other form is self-pity where we look at ourselves as a worm.
Pride is simply having an opinion of yourself that doesn’t line up with the word of God. Pride can be blinding because many times we can think we are doing God's will, but we are actually opposing Him. Think of the religious leaders who had Jesus crucified. When pride gets a root in our heart many times, we begin to think more highly of ourselves than we should. The deception of pride is that we try to be something that we were not created to be.
In Romans chapter 12 Paul was talking to them about humility, living our lives from the cross of Christ and the will of God. In verse 2 of this chapter Paul says be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. The text is talking about spiritual growth and how we grow. Just like a stalk of corn grows from blade, to ear then full corn in the same way we grow from children, young men and then into fathers.
The point that is trying to be made, in both texts, is that spiritual growth comes in stages as we walk with Him. If you read down to verse 3 Paul says that by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Though we are one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function.
Paul was encouraging us to walk in humility considering how God created us and not to allow pride to take us outside of the will of God. You can’t make yourself anything other than what God has made you. You just need to discover yourself made in the image of God. The pride of life is a snare, which will take us away from the path that God has called us to follow.
You are unique and allow God to use your uniqueness to reach this world. Learn to be comfortable in your own skin. We must follow the example of Jesus and stay true to the purpose, which God has created us to fulfill. We don't have to prove anything. We only have to be what we were made to be and do what we were created to do. Jesus did not have to prove He was the Messiah by a self-proclaimed miracle. His calling was to obey the Father and do what He told Him to do. Our mission is simply to fulfill the will of God for our lives. I want to recap as I end this lesson.
We have three main enemies to our souls which are Satan, the world and the flesh. The lower nature is the enemy within that we have to learn to turn away from by identifying with the cross and letting the Spirit of God to rule within our hearts. A lifestyle of repentance is the key to staying in union with our covenant partner Christ. Jesus is our example that we are to follow. He overcame therefore we too can be overcomers simply because we are yoked to him and the very same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in our mortal bodies.
It is only through humility and learning to lean on the grace of God that we can live victoriously.
We are going to be confronted as we walk in this world with the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life. Every person is unique and will have their own unique struggles. Sexual activity may not be your thing and it’s not a temptation to you, but every time you watch a commercial about eating a donut your mouth waters. Overeating is not a disease. Alcoholism and addiction is not a disease.
We have been lied to and made to believe that we can’t help the way that we are.
The Bible clearly tells us that we have been made in the image of God, which is both male and female, but that we have all been marred with sin. The area you might have a weakness in is the love of money. You might wake up and go to sleep thinking about how you are going to be rich thinking that wealth is going to satisfy the deep longing in your heart. I can tell you it won’t.
No one is above temptation and yielding to the flesh. Even Jesus was tempted, but he had humility of heart and trusted his Father in every situation. A lifestyle of repentance is learning to daily turn away from self by identifying with the cross and turning our hearts in humility towards the Spirit of life. It’s a lifetime commitment and a daily walk. It’s what the Bible calls discipleship. Paul whom we look to as one of the greatest examples in the Bible other than Christ understood his weakness. In I Corinthians 9:27 he said I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
The only way to overcome the lower nature is learning to rely on and walk in the Spirit.
It is a place of great humility and dependence on Christ in you. It is an active participation in daily joining ourselves to the covenant of grace poured out from the throne of the lamb. As I said at the beginning of this lesson, we don’t want to keep our focus on Satan, the world or the flesh. We have to acknowledge that we have an enemy, but our complete attention needs to be put upon the victory that we have through the cross because we become that which we mediated upon. Please listen to Part II of this lesson and I will give you some keys that you can put into practice to learn how to overcome the temptations that we will face in this walk of faith.
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Next Lesson: Lesson 10 Part 2 - A Lifestyle of Repentance
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