No Immunity Here!
By Steve Ensley
"Praise God! I'm saved! I gave my life to Jesus. I have confessed my sin and I have accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior! I have put off my old self and I am a new person. No longer will I live my life in my old ways. I am changed!"
Many of us have had that life changing experience. Many of us now put our hope in Jesus and the world to come and we put aside this world. It is truly an awesome experience and it is truly life changing! Nothing can change that genuine, sincere emotional and spiritual event that ensures our eternal salvation. But is it enough to sustain us? Of course, I mean is the emotion enough, not the decision. The salvation decision is complete and somehow our spirit knows this and our minds embrace it and that is where the hope comes from, but is the experience enough to sustain us here on earth and through our daily trials?
It should be, but is it? I am writing this particular article with a very heavy heart because another one of our well-known Christian leaders and brother has fallen. It is not necessary to mention the name or the circumstances. He has fallen by his own admission and it has rocked me to the core, again!
How does it happen that when we have had such a life changing experience, and that after we have received eternal life, that we can find ourselves in such a tragic condition. How do we Christians, who are heirs of the Father, some times come to this point that we are willing to forfeit everything for our own selfish desires. How do we find anything in this life more enticing than eternal life?
What is this insanity, this illness? How do children of God succumb to such sin?
I am no theologian, I would barely survive if my life depended on my complete knowledge of Scripture and I know all to well my own weaknesses and sin. And I must confess that when I became a Christian, somehow I thought Christians would become immune to the temptation of sin. Somehow I thought a decision for Christ would but a bubble around a Christian that would protect them from, what? Themselves? Sin? What was I thinking? Where did I get that impression that a new Christian or any Christian would now be impervious to the temptation to sin?
It certainly was not from Scripture or the Godly men and women who helped lead me to the Lord. It was not a revelation from God himself. I must have somehow assumed that a Christian is immune to temptation.
But the truth is none of us are immune to temptation. Not the saved, not the clergy, not the leaders. We are all still living in a fallen and corrupted world. Satan and his minions will work even harder on those of us who have made decisions, because before our decision he didn't need to work on us. He will stop at nothing to try and put separation between God and us. There is "no immunity here"!
This November I will be celebrating my third year in this ministry and the longer I serve, the more I am beginning to understand that Internet filtering and indeed all of the battles we wage to save our families are the result of our culture failing to respond to a call to personal holiness. We are called to be pure to seek that which is pure and to avoid at all costs that which is impure.
1 Thessalonians 4:7 For God has not called us to uncleanness, but to holiness.
As a culture and even in our churches we do not hear anything about a call to holiness. And yet, personal holiness seems to be exactly what is missing, because a person seeking holiness is not going to allow themselves to be put in a situation of temptation. Our culture elevates temptation to a status near deity. Have the best car! Go for it! You only live once! You need that sweater! Don't worry about that movie, you are an "adult", it won't cause you to sin, it's just entertainment, etc., etc. In a culture of overpowering commercialism, every moment of our lives can potentially become a temptation.
So how do we respond to that call to personal holiness? I believe there are several key components needed to respond to this call including the need for prayer and being in the "Word of God", but let me share with you three components that address attitude and behavior.
First, we need an obedient heart. We need to be obedient to the will of God and then we need the obedient heart of a servant, just like Jesus so beautifully modeled. Only with an obedient heart, will we even take the first steps to personal holiness.
Secondly, we must flee temptation. If we are to be holy, we must run, crawl, scratch and claw to flee temptation. It is no coincidence that the "Lord's Prayer" includes the reference to temptation. I have seen more Godly people destroy and crush their relationships with God and family because they simply did not avoid temptation. What makes us think we can resist temptation any more than Adam and Eve or King David or any saint of God. We can't and we are such fools when we ignore this fact.
Thirdly, we need accountability. We need to be accountable to God, our spouses and each other I don't believe we can hope to avoid and resist temptation if we do not have the immediate awareness in our minds that we are accountable for our every action. My good friend Dr. Bill Curnow often said, "we need to live our lives as if everything we say and do will be printed on the front page of the local newspaper for all to see". That's accountability!
Personal holiness! This is the core issue behind an Internet filter. That is why we here at American Family target our Internet filter at adults. If we as adults hope to respond to this call for personal holiness, we would not even consider going on the Internet without a filter based on Christian values that cannot be disabled with an "adult password override". We would know how the adult material, the chat room relationships and other Internet attractions will put us in situations of temptation that will threaten and maybe even destroy our personal holiness. The filter is our tool to avoid temptation. By acquiring a filter we are making ourselves accountable to our family and setting a standard of moral behavior and holiness for our family.
So please, let me say it again! In our obedience to God we will seek to maintain our purity while using the Internet, we will acquire a filter as a tool to avoid temptation to all types of immoral activities and we will establish accountability by setting the moral standards of Internet usage for our entire family.
You who already have filters, you are the leaders! You are the ones that have already responded to that call to personal holiness! Praise God for people like you! May God bless you richly for your obedience?
God Bless,Steve