Spiritual Confidence (Week 4)
Written by Ed Allen
Sunday, 25 June 2006 05:00
Lessons from the "Tortoise and the Hare"
- God does not want us to be distracted by the ungoverned pursuit of pleasure.
1 John 2:15-17 "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world — the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does — comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."
Our satisfaction only comes in God.
- anything else comes as a substitute thate John calls 'the world.'
- example from the movie The Matrix
The cravings of sinful man = the desires of the flesh
- This is when we want something that we shouldn't want or more than we should have.
The lust of our eyes = greed... it represents:
- Our desire to watch things that give us sinful pleasure.
- Our tendancy to be captivated by what is outward.
- Basic greed or materialism.
Boasting... = it is wrong to use things to make ourselves feel better
Reasons these are bad to pursue as our source of satisfaction in place of God
- Everything we see will pass away.
- It is not who you really are >> God has made us eternal.