Thoughts...

"How terrible it will be for anyone who causes others to sin. Temptation to do wrong is inevitable, but how terrible it will be for the person who does the tempting." - Matthew 18:7

These are words from the mouth of Jesus Christ as we read in the new testament book of Matthew. These words made me reflect on my life...

As a parent, do my actions reflect love or harshness that will bring my children closer to God or drive them away from God?
 
Do my actions show that it is out of love for their good or would it drive them away to someone else, something else, to seek the love and approval a child looks for in a parent?

Do they feel threatened or protected? How can I be loving, yet stern so that I can nurture them to grow up to be responsible, caring and God fearing individuals?

As a husband, do my actions make my wife question the love of Christ? Do my words tear her down or build her up? Does she find the love and security a woman looks for in her husband or would it drive her away to find it somewhere else?

In the world I work, is God reflected in my interactions with my co-workers?

Among strangers, will my actions reflect my God?

To my neighbor, will Christ be reflected in me?

LORD, I need your grace to finish this race and see your face in eternity!

Ben Fuller - Grace of God

His Own Heart was Lecherous

 

One of the most powerful stories I have ever heard on the nature of the human heart is told by Malcolm Muggeridge. Working as a journalist in India, he left his residence one evening to go to a nearby river for a swim. As he entered the water, across the river he saw an Indian woman from the nearby village who had come to have her bath. Muggeridge impulsively felt the allurement of the moment, and temptation stormed into his mind. He had lived with this kind of struggle for years but had somehow fought it off in honor of his commitment to his wife, Kitty. On this occasion, however, he wondered if he could cross the line of marital fidelity. He struggled just for a moment and then swam furiously toward the woman, literally trying to outdistance his conscience. His mind fed him the fantasy that stolen waters would be sweet, and he swam the harder for it. Now he was just two or three feet away from her, and as he emerged from the water, any emotion that may have gripped him paled into insignificance when compared with the devastation that shattered him as he looked at her.

“She was old and hideous...and her skin was wrinkled and, worst of all, she was a leper....This creature grinned at me, showing a toothless mask.” The experience left Muggeridge trembling and muttering under his breath, “What a dirty lecherous woman!” But then the rude shock of it dawned upon him—it was not the woman who was lecherous; it was his own heart.

- Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God

1Peter 5:8-9 - Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.

Fallen - Dennis Quaid

Francis Thompson - A documentary