Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.  Sing praises and worship His majesty!  Ask the Lord each day to fill you with His Holy Spirit.  Make it your highest aim to please God, and in His power, strive to develop the character of a true disciple of Jesus Christ.  Love others unconditionally, doing unto all, even the least, what you would do for Christ Himself — for in Heaven it shall be as if you had done it unto Him. 
 
Live in a continual state of prayer and communion with the Lord.  Study and meditate on the Word of God day and night.  In even the smallest choices between right and wrong, choose constant obedience.  Reckon yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God — crucified and risen with Christ to walk in newness of life.  Surrender your will and your life to the Father daily, even hourly.  Walk humbly, in absolute trust and dependence upon the Holy Spirit.  Allow Christ to live His life through you.
   
Flee every temptation without hesitation, recognizing that Satan wants to destroy you and will deceive you at every turn in the most persuasive ways imaginable — even as an angel of light.  Flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.  Avoid even the appearance of evil.  Learn to foresee and escape temptation.  For God is faithful and will never allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but with every temptation, will always make a way of escape.  When you see temptation approaching, run and never look back.
 
If you do fall to sin, acknowledge, confess, and forsake it — knowing you are forgiven.  Then walk on in full submission to the Holy Spirit, avoiding every compromise that could lead you to sin.  Once sin is confessed, rebuke all condemning thoughts in the name of Jesus.
         
Guard your heart and mind with all diligence.  When ungodly thoughts enter your mind, take them captive to the obedience of Christ; and in His name, resist the devil — who must flee from you.  When offended or hurt by others, forgive and release them, as Christ has forgiven you, never allowing bitterness to take root.  Give no place to the devil.  Be anxious for nothing — never worry.  Never fear.  Cast all your cares upon the Lord, for He cares for you.  Do nothing out of pride, selfishness, or vain conceit, but in meekness and humility, consider others better than yourself.  Rid yourself of all malice, envy, strife, anger, slander, deceit, and hypocrisy.  Strive for perfection as your lifelong ambition in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Be kind, loving, gentle, patient, merciful, honest, and self-controlled.  Whatsoever things are true, right, pure, and praiseworthy — think on these things.
 
Consider yourself a stranger and pilgrim in a world polluted by sin.  Stand alone, when necessary, to uphold the highest standards of godliness.  Hate evil.  Love righteousness.  Honor God in your body, His holy temple, and never defile it by yielding to sexual immorality.  For you are bought with a price and your body is not your own.  Keep your tongue from evil.  Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only that which is edifying. Do all things without grumbling or complaining.  In word and thought and deed, do all to the glory of God.  Die to self.  Live to please your Lord without reservation, ever-conscious of the fact that you will give an account for your life at the Judgment Seat of Christ, and will be rewarded for all eternity — for everything done in His power, for His glory, and for the good of others.
   
Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not be conformed to the standards of this world, but instead be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so you will know and experience the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.  Cast aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with patience the race that is set before you.  Seek first to advance the Kingdom of God, and He will provide your needs.  Be content.  Always keep your eyes on Jesus — the author and finisher of our faith — our Lord, our Savior, and soon coming King!  
 
Pray daily: "Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.  Transform me into the likeness of Christ.  As a living sacrifice, allow me to glorify You in every area of my life.  Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.  Make me a clean vessel, obedient to Your will, holy and usable, so I may fulfill my calling and complete whatever You would have me to do — today, and for the rest of my life."
 
Whoever lives a godly life and follows after righteousness will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy — useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. 

REGARDING TEMPTATION:

"Heed God's alarm over temptation!"

By Laurie Elmore Thompson


Bob Reccord, president of the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board, recounted the tragic story of a close friend in the ministry who ignored God's warnings against sin and participated in an extra-marital affair.

"I just had to ask him why?" Reccord said. "Did he not hear the alarms ringing? Had he not heard God's warning of what was happening? My friend's response came after a long moment of silence... 'Yes, Bob, I heard the alarm, but I decided to disconnect the wires.'"

In his message at the Wake Forest, N.C., campus, Reccord contrasted two men in Scripture who came face to face with temptation: Joseph and David.

"One man stood tall and one man fell flat," Reccord said, directing attention to Genesis 39 where Joseph refused temptation, even though Joseph's master's wife pursued and wrongly accused him. On the other hand, in Samuel 11, David was in the wrong place at the wrong time and embraced sin.

"One recognized his weakness; the other overestimated his strength," Reccord said. "Joseph understood there is an innate weakness in every one of us ... but David was probably one who would have said, 'This will never be a problem for me.'"

For those flirting with the possibility of an affair, Reccord recapped some consequences of immorality as stated by Chuck Swindoll.

"If you fall morally in ministry, your mate will experience betrayal, shame and rejection, and no amount of repentance will ever take it fully away," Reccord recounted. "Second, your mate can never say again that you are the model of fidelity, for suspicion will always lurk in the back of his or her mind. Your escapades may introduce into your marriage something you never expected, that is, sexually transmitted disease. Fourth, the total devastation of your sinful actions on your children will be immeasurable. Their growth, innocence, trust, and healthy outlook on life will be severely and permanently damaged. The heartache - fifth - that you cause your parents, family and peers will be indescribable."

Reccord also pointed out that Joseph used his authority responsibly whereas David irresponsibly abused his authority.

"The responsible use of authority always comes from solid accountability," Reccord said, challenging Southeastern students to find an accountability partner who will ask hard questions.  "Have you had lustful thoughts about anybody other than your [spouse] in the last week? Have you been tempted to do any unethical thing with your finances and are you tithing to the Lord? Are you working to stay physically fit? Are you spending quality and quantity time with your family or your spouse? Is your thought life clean? Have you lied to me about any one of the other answers?"

Noting that Joseph "placed a guard on his heart" while David "left his heart unguarded," Reccord cited Proverbs. 4:23, "[G]uard your heart for out of it will come the issues of your
life."

Failure to guard one's heart results in disobedience, Reccord said. "The heart begins to drift, obedience begins to lag, and then we look to something or someone to fill whatever God should fill himself," he said. "That's how affairs happen... someone starts taking the place that only God can fill."

Most importantly in looking to these two men, "one man fled and one man stayed," Reccord said.

Referring to James 1:15, which states, "After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when its fully grown gives birth to death," Reccord identified the pattern of sin. "It
means that when I give in to temptation, there's part of me that dies. There's a part of me that becomes insensitive to the warning sounds of the alarm of God. That's the dangerous thing."

Reccord encouraged the seminarians to do what Job did in Job 31:1, to make a "covenant with my eyes to the Lord that I will never look lustfully after a young woman."

"I just want to remind you that [sin] comes in such subtle ways,"  Reccord added, referencing magazines such as the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated and even the Victoria's Secret catalog, which can become a lure to pornography.

Offering three points of counsel, Reccord said, "Make sure there is no area in your life that he's not Lord of and there's no sin in your life that you haven't confessed. Number two, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. But make sure you're prepared to do it before the temptation comes. Third, come near to God, and he will come near to you.

"Stay close and you'll stay clean, but drift away, and you won't," Reccord said. "When the alarm sounds, I beg you, I beg you ... please don't disconnect the wires, but listen to the
alarm and get out of there!"

Thompson is a news writer at Southeastern Seminary.
 
 
- Baptist Press, April 6, 2001