avoiding sin by clinging to Jesus
This past weekend my good friend Tyler Johnson was teaching at a Men's Training Day, where three ministries (Praxis Church, Vital Impact, and seven:ten) gathered for a day of teaching directed at men's issues. You can get the audio here if you want it.
During Tyler's session, he said this:
"You don't avoid sin by avoiding sinners. You avoid sin by falling in love with Jesus."
May we all fall madly in love with Jesus more and more every day.
There
The Battle
The battle once fought, and seemingly forever, left this man on the battlefield constantly wounded and in need of medical attention and sometimes believing a morgue would soon be called upon. Fighting against the world’s allures and the flesh’s desires, both formidable foes, I found myself defeated over and over again. So many losses I found myself raising the white flag of surrender to my enemies rather than incur the wages of war with the ensuing inevitable loss. Battling to forgo all the tangible experiences that are sin, for what has been the intangible experience of God, has proven all but futile and exhausting. Let it not be said, that ‘we shouldn’t battle against our flesh’. However, instead of our greatest and primary battle being against sin, let our greatest battle be, to find in Christ, satisfaction and joy that is so sufficiently sweet and compelling and tangible that our turning from sin is no longer our main battle to be won or lost by our effort, but rather a sweet victory, won by Christ and given to us that we may in turn give the glory for that victory back to Him.