How To Love the Lord thy God

With all your heart, soul, mind and strength

Chapter 10 Rinse and Repeat

I am assuming once you get to this chapter you have put into practice the very difficult task of trusting Christ to give you the victory over sins temptations. Victory! Yes at last. So now what? That answer is simple, rinse and repeat. More temptations will come and more battles will need to be fought. It is not over by a long shot but that very first battle victory is probably the sweetest, probably because it is truly amazing that we can defeat the enemy and it is truly amazing to see Christ come to our aid in such a powerful and forceful way. Isn’t He amazing? Oh yeah, you are going to love Him for what He has done and what He will continue to do for you. Yes, yes this is the road we must travel to fall in love with the Savior. It is watching Him save you from your sins. Not just having Him save you from the consequences of your sins but having Him in real time save you from sinning.

Future battles will become easier, future temptations will become fewer, Jesus said, “take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” But you are probably not there yet but you are getting there. Brace yourself for the next battle, don’t waffle back and forth, resolve in your heart to fight and never give in to your sinful desires. Always, always put your trust in Christ and hold on to Him until deliverance comes. Don’t give the Devil an inch, like an eagles claw he will sink his claw deep into your flesh and reel you in like a big fish. He does not like to lose, but scriptures says if we resist the devil he will flee from you.

In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught us to pray, “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” And in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus exhorted the disciples to what and pray that they enter not into temptation. The easiest way to win a battle is to not enter into it in the first place. Of course I know lots of Christians who don’t enter into the battle against sin by simply caving into their sinful desires, “no mas” they say, no fight they quit before they ever start. Don’t be like that, be a fighter but only fight when you need to, stay out of temptation, it is a dark place to be in and very unpleasant. But when you fall into it fight like there is no tomorrow. 

Christ is looking for fighters, he loves fighters, he knows what it is like to fight, remember he came down to this filthy dirty sin filled planet and lived here among us for 33 years. Then suffered a horrible death on a cross. He is a man’s man, a truly great person, and a fighter. He never backs down in a fight, he is ready anytime every time you need Him to fight. Remember He is the one who does the fighting for you, don’t ever try to defeat Satan on your own, he will hurt you and you will lose. Put your trust in the Great One, our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed and only Almighty God, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, all honor and power to Him forever, Amen.

I don’t know how old you are but as a friendly reminder this is a life long commitment, if you are young and if you live to be an old person like me, I am 74, that means you have a long way to go. Hey, don’t think I am almost finished either, I’m thinking I probably have another 20 years left in the tank. But young or old we all need to settle in for the long haul, it is a life long commitment, we gave our lives to Christ our Savior, our whole lives and every minute of it until we die. So let us be buttercups and suck it up and live for Him until death do we part and not waver. By doing so we will find that love that will fill our hearts, the love of God, the sweetest thing in all the universe, it makes the angels in heaven envious. We are in a unique position we are not like the angels or like anything else in the whole universe, we are unique, created by God to be adopted by Him to be part of a great family. “ and I will be there God and they will be my people” that line is found all throughout the scriptures as His plan for us slowly rolls out, until finally in Rev.21:3,4 it says…

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”