TEMPTATION

Dear Friends in Christ -

I wanted to take a minute to summarize a few things from this morning's sermon. Just hearing things once isn't enough for me; I have to sit with them and think about them and "road test" them. I don't know about you, but as I strive to stay on track with my Lenten discipline, I'm having daily encounters with temptation. In facing those temptations, I'm going to be relying on the words of comfort and challenge that came to us today . . .

Temptation. It's all around us. And no amount of "doing the right thing" seems to exempt us from it. Heck, even Jesus was tempted - and his biggest temptations came right after God spoke from the cloud, "This is my beloved Son." So, basically, we're in for it. That's the bad news.

The other bad news is that God calls on us to fight temptation, which is exhausting! But He's given us some tools: prayer and fasting. These spiritual disciplines aren't complicated to do, but they are challenging. There's promise in them, though: through prayer and fasting we learn to TRUST GOD and allow his power to FLOW THROUGH US. Through obedience, we become able to do mighty things in His name - even (as the disciples learned) things as amazing as casting out demons!!

The good news is that we can expect some things from God in our fight against temptation: POWER and ANGELS. God promises nothing less than the presence and power of Holy Spirit to help us ("The Spirit helps us in our weakness."). God also promises that we will never be alone, and he sends his ANGELS to our aid. Not chubby, cute, Hallmark card angels, but mighty fighting angels with flaming swords to cut to the quick of things that threaten to drag us down. And sometimes the angels he sends even have skin on - friends and neighbors who offer help and support.

There's no shame in being tempted; temptation is part of the human condition. Lent is a time to fight temptation, to take a stand for the right, the good. In doing so, we learn to trust God. In Him, all things are possible.

Really?!? All things?!? OK, that's a promise I'm going to take for a test drive in my battles against temptation this week . . . bring it on!

Faithfully,
Janet+