The following words are from an email that I wrote two of my friends a couple days ago:
I found this great psalm today and found it to be a great one in a time of temptation. I was feeling pretty sorely tempted so I ran and cracked my Bible open and it came right to psalm 18. It's a great psalm of victory, which brings me to something I want to toss out:
I've learned that cracking open scripture with the right heart attitude is an almost sure-fire way of driving of temptation (especially temptations of the lustful sort). One thing that I was thinking about earlier however is that I so often leap at the psalms and such with titles like "cry for help in the time of trouble", when we should spend equal or more time in the psalms with titles like "worship of the Lord in His greatness". I've found that for me personally, the crying out psalms have been very effective in times of confession and repentance in prayer, while focusing on God's ultimate greatness and power really helps to dissipate the desires of the flesh (talk about contrast!): When we really start to grasp the magnitude of God's incredible awesomeness, our little personal desires take the back seat.
By all means, cry out and pour your heart out to God, because we are totally depraved and helpless without Him. But never neglect to ponder anew His greatness and power, and what that means for all evil that has its eyes on your life call.
Having Christ in your heart and not calling on His power is like carrying a sword and fighting with your fists. It doesn't make sense.
What do you guys think?
~josh
I've learned that cracking open scripture with the right heart attitude is an almost sure-fire way of driving of temptation (especially temptations of the lustful sort). One thing that I was thinking about earlier however is that I so often leap at the psalms and such with titles like "cry for help in the time of trouble", when we should spend equal or more time in the psalms with titles like "worship of the Lord in His greatness". I've found that for me personally, the crying out psalms have been very effective in times of confession and repentance in prayer, while focusing on God's ultimate greatness and power really helps to dissipate the desires of the flesh (talk about contrast!): When we really start to grasp the magnitude of God's incredible awesomeness, our little personal desires take the back seat.
By all means, cry out and pour your heart out to God, because we are totally depraved and helpless without Him. But never neglect to ponder anew His greatness and power, and what that means for all evil that has its eyes on your life call.
Having Christ in your heart and not calling on His power is like carrying a sword and fighting with your fists. It doesn't make sense.
What do you guys think?
~josh
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