Chapter Five
Temptation is relentless.
The flesh never surrenders—it can be weakened and controlled, but the moment it senses an opportunity, it awakens and attacks.
We can never let our spiritual guard down.
The temptation is to surrender; to stop fighting and embrace a compromised version of Christianity —one that offers us some comfort and pleasure, and allows us to be accepted by society.
Why should we stay in the fight?
Wouldn’t life be easier if we just went with the flow of our nature and our culture?
No one wants to be a weirdo.
No one wants to be singled out from the crowd.
No one wants to be ridiculed.
Can’t we just believe in Christ and go to heaven?
Do we have to “take up our cross every day?”
Do we have to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God?”
No, we do not have to do any of these.
We can be Christians and live outside of God’s will either through ignorance or disobedience.
Can we accept Jesus as Saviour but not Lord?
I think so.
However, the Holy Spirit will never be content occupying only parts of our lives; the Spirit will constantly push outwards, wanting to occupy every part of us.
Temptation is relentless, but so is the Spirit.
We must remember that Paul is writing to Christians—people who had been truly saved, many of whom were saved and baptized when he was there. But they had drifted off course and into compromise; they had backslidden into a perverted sexuality, and Paul is writing to them as their spiritual father and rebuking and correcting their flawed thinking about their sexuality.
It’s not a matter of “have to” but rather “want to.”
The Holy Spirit brings with him a desire for God and an appetite for the things of God. The Spirit also brings with him a conviction about things that weaken our faith and quench the power of the Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit that creates the desire to be in the places and around the people that feed our souls and help us become who God created and called us to be.
“He has given us the same mission, the ministry of reconciliation, to bring others back to Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:18
When we go to the places that don’t honour God and when we are around the people that don’t know Jesus yet, we are sent there by Christ as his representatives, not seeking to be affirmed and supported, but instead seeking to share the hope and the peace that we have found in Christ.
We go not as potential converts but as missionaries, looking for opportunities to share our faith.
Our message will have credibility only if it is accompanied by holiness, only if the people around us see something different in us. If we are just like them, then our testimony will have no credibility.
Our sexuality is a part of our testimony.
It is the gradual realization of what Jesus did for us and a deepening understanding of his love—his incomprehensible, mind-blowing, life-changing love—that creates the desire to be like him; that motivates our pursuit of holiness.
The Holy Spirit implants the desire to live godly lives and gives us a hunger for holiness, a hunger that has the power to overcome the other hungers in our lives.
One author called it The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.
The only way to overcome desire is to encounter and experience a superior desire.
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