I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)
“I’m tempted to…”
Stop right there.
If you are tempted to do something, stop.
Temptation is bait on a hook. It’s a lure seeking to get you off track for a short term benefit.
It’s ALWAYS a short term benefit that sacrifices long term good.
The problem is…that short term benefit can seem SO GOOD. That’s the temptation.
The fish looks at the worm, and even though it looks strange, dangling in the water with a hook in it and a line reaching to the sky, still, it looks so yummy!
Years ago there was a country song that said, “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?”
That’s the problem with temptation. Listen. Temptation ALWAYS includes a cloud of deception. If you let temptation linger, you enter the cloud of deception. You will only see the short term benefit and you will be blind to what you’re really going to get.
Jesus put it in construction terms. If we live within God’s principles, we are building our life on a solid foundation. But when we don’t live within God’s principles, we are building on sand. Yes, you can build on sand all day long. Some people do. But sand makes a terrible foundation. It’s affected by wind and rain and critters.
But rock. I mean, look at the pyramids. In fact, there are huge structures made of massive stones throughout the world that have been standing strong for thousands of years.
What does that mean?
It means they did not compromise the construction.
Look. You are building a life. You are building a legacy. You are building an eternity.
Your marriage. Your family. Your work. Your integrity.
Build these on rock – live within God’s principles – and the construction will be solid.
But watch out for temptation. It will try to get you to cut corners, to compromise. It will come with little lies, like, “It won’t matter,” and, “What’s the difference?”
The difference is that when you give in to temptation, you are compromising your construction, and compromised construction ALWAYS FAILS.
I like this word they used when talking about the Titanic a hundred years ago: it FOUNDERED. It failed. It sank. It was ruinous. It was a disaster.
That’s what temptation leads to. Your ship will founder.
All temptation leads to bad construction.
But as Jesus said in Matthew 7:24 and 25, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not…for it was founded on the rock.”
May God bless you today.
I’m Doug Apple.
