Sunday, November 9th, 2003 - The Living Word

I had a supernatural experience tonight, so I must warn that some may be weirded out by it. I figure that if you have ever spent some time with me and can handle my odd ways (I've had a lot of people tell me, "Doug, sometimes I just don't know about you), then you should be fine hearing this.

I have come under increased temptation lately, so I have started the practice of praying out loud when I am tempted. Through this, I have learned that vocally expressing my desire to reject sin and embrace holiness greatly helps me to think about the temptation less and focus on God. One time, I even continued to verbally bash and make fun of Satan repeatedly for being so dumb. This made me feel really good, but I'm not so sure if that was such a good idea. Please email me if you have any thoughts about that - I'd love to hear them.

Tonight, I came under temptation once again. This time, however, my roommate was in the room sleeping, so I couldn't stand in the middle of my room and cry out to God like I've been getting used to doing. Now that I think about it, I suppose I could have whispered to Him, but for some reason I was thinking that I had to do it out loud (which isn't true). So I began dwell on the temptation in my mind - which is by far the worst thing that I could have done.

Playing the battle of the "mind game" has always had negative results for me, and unfortunately, the lures of temptation got the upper hand tonight. But before I reacted to them with sin, I gazed at my Bible sitting on my desk. I picked it up with my right hand and took hold of the other side of it in my left hand. As soon as both of my hands grasped it, the ugly, evil thoughts and the destitution of "knowing that I'm about to sin yet doing nothing to stop it from happening" all left me at once.

I stood there grasping my Bible, still not having even opened it, as the mess in my head vanished and was replaced with "No, I'm not going to do it." This has never happened to me before (just by grabbing my Bible), so I took some time to think on God and what just happened, before opening up the Bible. I re-read a section of 2 Kings 17 where God is commanding the foreigners in Israel to worship only Him, yet the people choose to worship Him and other gods at the same time.

As I meditated on this, I affirmed myself how that I don't want to end up like those people; I don't want to be the source of both blessing and cursing that God warned about in James 3:10. I want to be truly dead to sin and alive in Christ (Romans 6:11), taking on the full "armor of God" explained in Ephesians 6. I want to honor God when He said, "Be holy because I am holy" (Leviticus 11:44).

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