In the Scripture passage from Sunday, January 31, (Romans 6:12-14) Paul said, “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”  Presentation has to do with who you offer yourself to. In fact, if you think about it, that’s what worship is – loving God and offering yourself to Him.  When we pass the offering plate, it’s just one way you have of offering yourself and the substance of your life to God.

  Paul is saying to us that if we present ourselves to God, we will become more like God.  On the other hand, if we present ourselves to sin, we will become more sinful. We have a tendency to think that what really matters is what we do.  But doing is always caused by something else.  It is that something else that presentation addresses. 

 This passage of Scripture teaches that we will all be determined by what we present ourselves to.  In other words, if you think all the time about money or work all the time to get money, it’s going to be very difficult for you to be generous or people-centered.  If you think all the time about drinking, it’s going to be very difficult for you to stay sober.  If you think all the time about being sophisticated, it’s going to be very difficult for you to be down to earth and available to the people around you.  So what you present yourself to, who you hang out with, what you spend time thinking about, and what you value in life are going to be the great determining factors of your life.  It’s no wonder that people who set these ungodly values are surprised by their ungodly actions when they really meant to do something else.  Good news.  If you present yourself to Jesus Christ repeatedly, guess what will happen then?  That’s right.  You’ll become more like Him, and you will do His will more readily.

             When we are born again we are given the power of the Holy Spirit so that we will be naturally drawn to God and have the ability to relate to Him.  Yet, many of us who have that natural ability don’t use it.  We’re like a person who has the capacity to be a great pitcher but never picks up a baseball or picks one up only to toss it around the yard from time to time.  If you are born again, you have the Holy Spirit.  You have the ability to present yourself to God over and over again and to find increasing joy in it.  Do you take advantage of the opportunities we offer here at the church to present yourself to God or are you just coming to Sunday school and church?  Is it a duty or is it an opportunity for you to draw near to Him and present yourself to Him? 

             The Scripture says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).  This is the same as saying, “Present your bodies to God as an instrument of righteousness” (Romans 6:13).  That is, present yourself with the desire that God would use you for a righteous purpose.

2.   Foundational work is best.  All three of these Scripture passages talked about      the importance of building a relationship with God over time.  In the second message we looked at the passage in Matthew (Matthew 7:24 – 27) about building your house upon the rock.  By that Jesus meant you need to go to the trouble to  build a strong foundation with God.  You must not quit because it’s a struggle.      Who wouldn’t rather dig in sand than pound on a rock with a primitive hammer and chisel.  The Lord is telling us that doing foundational work with God will not       always be easy.  Reading through the Bible is not just reading Psalms or John. 

      It’s also reading Deuteronomy, but there’s a reason God put that in the Book.  So be willing to have some bloody knuckles so when the battle with temptation  comes, you will be ready.

      This is not something you can do by relying on Sunday school, church, or your small Bible study group only.  It requires effort on your part.  I can’t urge enough the importance of reading the Word of God daily, talking to God daily, journaling when you reach a sticking point, and practicing spiritual disciplines like fasting, charity work, and accountability.  In short, make as much of an effort in your relationship with God as you do with anything else.  Make more effort if you really haven’t been that much into effort in your life.

  3.  A changed nature is the only way.  All three of the solutions offered in this Scripture passage assume you need a nature that is receptive to God.  This is not    man’s normal nature.  That’s why in Romans 12:2 Paul said, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  The renewed mind is the mind made receptive by your working at spiritual growth.

      One way to look at what transformation involves is that before we are born again we’re like a radio that is neither turned on nor tuned in to God’s broadcast frequency.  When we are born again God turns on our ability to receive His message and tunes us in to His channel.  This means we become naturally   receptive to Him, but it does not mean that it requires no effort on our part.  The business of transformation, like the business of presenting our bodies to the Lord, is something we must do on a regular basis.

       As we grow in grace, our ability to hear and understand His Word becomes more and more natural, our desire to do His will more and more natural, and our willingness to yield to temptation more and more unnatural.

       I don’t know how much you are working in your life at dealing with temptation early rather than late, at doing the foundational work necessary to be able to do that without a lot of struggle, and to grow in changing your nature, but these are by far the best ways to handle temptation successfully.

            I’ve had a lot of good feedback from the sermon series on temptation.  I’m sure the reason some have found it helpful is because temptation is a big, regular problem for all of us.  In fact, it’s an everyday problem.  It’s a problem I hope to prevail over more and more, as you apparently do.  Let me help a little further. 

             There are three things these three messages have in common with regard to handling temptation.  All three messages asserted that:

1.  Handling it early is always better than handling it late.  This means somewhere around the starting line rather than up into the process.
2. Foundational work is better than reaction to a temptation knocking at the door of your life.
3. A changed nature is the only way you’re going to win over temptation consistently and this requires spiritual discipline.

 Let me go over each of these three battle strategies with you.

1.  Early is always better than late.  When you wait until temptation is breathing down your neck, there’s a good chance you’ve already lost.  A friend of mine who had an addiction problem was telling me that all addicts find great relief in making the decision to go ahead and yield to their addiction.   In fact, they feel about as good when they make the decision to go ahead as they do when they actually roll the dice, take the drink, or practice whatever addiction they have.

 Many of us believe we are free enough and powerful enough to be able to decide to get out of a situation whenever we want to.  But all three of the Scripture passages we looked at asserted that there is a point at which you can make the decision “yes” or “no,” but that opportunity doesn’t last for long.  Once you reach the point of no return, guess what?  You’re unlikely to return.  Can God do something once you’ve passed that point?  Yes, He certainly can and He will help you, but the results won’t be the same as if you have dealt with the temptation early rather than late and walk away.  Get away from it.  Turn to God.  Talk to a friend.  Develop some accountability for yourself, but do it when you first begin to have the feeling or think about it. 

 (I will conclude this in my next blog.)

James 1:14 uses a word that describes the word to first get a fish out of his safe place before trying to get him to bite on the lure.  The point for us is we can build safe places and learn to love them to the degree that they are more appealing than the offer temptation always brings.

             One man told me of his battle with cigarettes, which he admitted he never really liked very much.  He had, with the help of nicotine gum, successfully stopped smoking but still wanted a cigarette more often than he liked even though it had been more than a year since he had smoked a single cigarette.  He knew his attraction was no longer a physical habit because the junk had been out of his system for too long, and he wondered why he still wanted something he didn’t want to do.

             He began praying, “Lord, show me where this urge comes from and how to get rid of it.”  The Lord did.  What He said to him was, “Cigarettes are your safe place. They are a dangerous safe place, and you need a new one.  What do you like about them and why and what can you learn to love and construct that will make them unappealing and make the alternative more appealing?” 

             He realized a decision he had made when he was young that cigarettes made him tough, independent, manly, and were associated with certain manly outdoor activities had become a big part of his self-image.  He began to call these ideas what they were:  silly, immature, unrealistic, the cause of bad breath, bad health, and unnecessary expense.  Then he began to build a picture of long life, a life pleasing to God, smelling good, feeling good, and not setting a bad example for his children.  Soon he began to wonder why he ever started smoking and no longer felt the former attraction to his old habit. 

             Unfortunately for us, we are often building places where we feel comfortable but are in danger.  Many of these places (like his “Marlboro man” place) expose us rather than protect us.  Do you have an image of your family that is Biblical and God-pleasing?  How much do you love it?  How about yourself and the work you do?  Do you have a picture of yourself as hardworking, successful, and pleasing to your boss or do you have a more self-serving image of yourself as a worker?  If you have developed and nurtured good desire, then the flash of temptation will have much less magnetism because you’ll say, “I love it right where I am.”  Building a safe place is the best and most positive way we can handle temptation.  I hope you are working at building some new safe places and some new parts of your self-image so that when temptation comes to you, you’ll say, “You don’t have anything to offer me.”

Temptation is something we must all learn to handle or it will handle us.  This past Sunday (January 24) we studied James 1:14-15 and saw that before we can be tempted, we must first be “carried away” from a place of safety.  Staying in that place of safety could be called the preventive approach to handling temptation, and like all approaches to life, temptation is the cheapest and least painful approach to any problem.  It’s also the life skill the believer is best suited for and, unfortunately, the one we frequently ignore.

             Every believer has been given the word of God and the ability to understand it. He has also been given the Holy Spirit by whom he can know his own vulnerabilities and possess the ability and desire to combat them.

             I talked to a young man who was struggling with pornography on the internet but overcame the struggle by a preventive strategy.  It began by his being honest with himself about what the Scripture said about looking on a woman with lust and admitting to himself and to God that he was not in God’s will about this matter.  He then talked it over with some of his best friends who also were struggling.  After months of fighting (often unsuccessfully) they came up with a preventive strategy.  They each installed blocks on each other’s computers so only the installers could remove the blocks.  Therefore, each person’s personal computer could not access the forbidden fruit on the internet.  He said it was a tremendous relief to know that even if he had the desire, he lacked the means. Over time, the desire became less intense and less regular. 

             If you are a born-again believer, you have the Holy Spirit, and by His power you have the creative capacity to come up with your own preventive strategies.  Several years ago when the scourge of video poker was about, another young man I know who couldn’t stay away from it had greatly reduced – but not stopped – his habit by shear willpower.  He now only played when he needed gasoline, which he always purchased at a convenience store.  While he was there he played some video poker.  He said although it was not nearly the financial burden it had been, it felt to him like a seed that was always there in his life and could sprout at any minute, and he didn’t like the feeling.  Under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, he developed a strategy by which he would never buy gasoline alone (sounds crazy, huh!).  Now when he bought gas, he always took his wife and children.  If he was going to be on a trip out of town, he would make sure he filled the tank in town.  He really worked at this.  He also made sure he only went with his wife and/or children to gas stations where there was no video poker.  He said that over time, his desire diminished and the desire to be with his wife or children on these short trips became so pleasurable that it began to replace the phony, damaging pleasure of playing video poker. 

             Prevention is the best strategy.  It is something you can do. What are you struggling with and what can you do to prevent it?