If You Don’t Fight Lust

Abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2:11)

When I confronted a man about the adultery he was living in, I tried to understand his situation, and I pled with him to return to his wife. Then I said, “You know, Jesus says that if you don’t fight this sin with the kind of seriousness that is willing to gouge out your own eye, you will go to hell and suffer there forever.”

As a professing Christian, he looked at me in utter disbelief, as though he had never heard anything like this in his life, and said, “You mean you think a person can lose his salvation?”

So, I have learned again and again from firsthand experience that there are many professing Christians who have a view of salvation that disconnects it from real life, and that nullifies the threats of the Bible, and that puts the sinning person who claims to be a Christian beyond the reach of biblical warnings. I believe this view of the Christian life is comforting thousands who are on the broad way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13).

Jesus said, if you don’t fight lust, you won’t go to heaven. “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29). The point is not that true Christians always succeed in every battle. The issue is that we resolve to fight, not that we succeed flawlessly. We don’t make peace with sin. We make war.

The stakes are much higher than whether the world is blown up by a thousand long-range missiles, or terrorists bomb your city, or global warming melts the ice caps, or AIDS sweeps the nations. All these calamities can kill only the body. But if we don’t fight lust, we lose our souls. Forever.

Peter says the passions of the flesh wage war against our souls (1 Peter 2:11). The stakes in this war are infinitely higher than in any threat of world war or terrorism. The apostle Paul listed “immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness,” then said it is “on account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5–6). And the wrath of God is immeasurably more fearful than the wrath of all the nations of the world put together.

May God give us grace to take our souls and others souls seriously and keep up the fight.

John Piper

Who wants to have a funeral before they die?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For you are our glory and joy.” 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Here’s what Paul was saying to the believers in Thessalonica: “When Jesus comes, my crown is going to those that I’ve led to Him.” Now that’s a crown that doesn’t tarnish or turn to rust.

When you die and go to heaven, are you going to take somebody with you? Or are you going to heaven alone? “Must I go and empty-handed, must I meet my Savior so; without one soul with which to greet Him, must I empty-handed go?”

Now I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’m concerned because most people in church are not active soul winners. That’s tragic. 

You say, “But, Pastor, I give my money.” I don’t care how much money you give. If you’re not endeavoring to bring souls to Christ, you’re not right with God. You say, “Well, I teach.” I don’t care how eloquently you teach. If you’re not trying to bring souls to Jesus, you’re not right with God. You say, “Well, I attend faithfully.” I don’t care how much you attend. If you’re not trying to bring souls to Jesus Christ, you are not right with God.

Andrew Murray said, “There are two classes of Christians: soul winners and backsliders.” You are one or the other. If you don’t have a passion to see people come to the Lord Jesus Christ, I wonder if you know the Jesus I know.

ACTION POINT:

My dear brother, my dear sister, there is a crown to run for. It’s the soul winner’s crown.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

What It Means to Love Money

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. (1 Timothy 6:10)

What did Paul mean when he wrote this? He couldn’t have meant that money is always on your mind when you sin. A lot of sin happens when we are not thinking about money.

My suggestion is this: He meant that all the evils in the world come from a certain kind of heart, namely, the kind of heart that loves money.

So what does it mean to love money? It doesn’t mean to admire the green paper or the copper coins or the silver shekels. To know what it means to love money, you have to ask, What is money? I would answer that question like this: Money is simply a symbol that stands for human resources. Money stands for what you can get from man — other human beings — instead of God.

God deals in the currency of grace, not money: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1). Money is the currency of human resources. So, the heart that loves money is a heart that pins its hopes, and pursues its pleasures, and puts its trust in what human resources can offer.

So, the love of money is virtually the same as faith in money — belief (trust, confidence, assurance) that money will meet your needs and make you happy.

Love of money is the alternative to faith in God’s future grace. It is faith in future human resources — the kind of thing you can obtain or secure with money. Therefore the love of money, or trust in money, is the underside of unbelief in the promises of God. Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters. . . . You cannot serve God and money.”

You can’t trust in God and in money at the same time. Belief in one is unbelief in the other. A heart that loves money — that banks on money for happiness — is not banking on all that God is for us in Jesus as the satisfaction of our souls.

John Piper 

What trophy are you running for?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

…who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2b

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Jesus is our example, a champion who, when He ran His race, received a crown of joy. When an athlete runs, he runs to win a trophy. In our verse today, what is “the joy that is set before Him”? It’s winning the race. He “endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

That crown gave Him the ability to endure. If you keep the crown in mind, you can bear the cross. But you cannot have the crown if you despise the cross. We are crucified with the Lord Jesus Christ.

I had a few trophies that I won back in high school on a championship football team: a gold football, a letterman’s sweater and a silver cup. Do you know what happened to all those trophies? Someone broke into the house and got the gold football. The moths had a camp meeting in the sweater. It’s gone. There are no more letters on that letter sweater. What happened to the silver cup? I haven’t the foggiest.

ACTION POINT:

Friend, athletes run “to obtain a corruptible crown; but we for an incorruptible” (1 Corinthians 9:25). Running the race, Jesus had the joy that was set before Him and He endured the cross. He despised the shame. There is a prize to possess.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Satan’s Strategy and Your Defense

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith. (1 Peter 5:8–9)

The two great enemies of our souls are sin and Satan. And sin is the worst enemy, because the only way that Satan can destroy us is by getting us to sin, and keeping us from repenting. The only thing that damns us is unforgiven sin. Not Satan.

God may give him leash enough to rough us up, the way he did Job, or even to kill us, the way he did the saints in Smyrna (Revelation 2:10); but Satan cannot condemn us or rob us of eternal life. The only way he can do us ultimate harm is by influencing us to sin, and keep us from repentance. Which is exactly what he aims to do.

So, Satan’s main business is to advocate, promote, assist, titillate, and confirm our bent to sinning. And to keep us from faith and repentance.

We see this in Ephesians 2:1–2: “You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked . . . according to the prince of the power of the air” (NASB). Sinning “accords” with Satan’s power in the world. When he brings about moral evil, it is through sin. When we sin, we move in his sphere. We come into accord with him. When we sin, we give place to the devil (Ephesians 4:27).

The only thing that will condemn us at the judgment day is unforgiven sin — not sickness or afflictions or persecutions or intimidation or apparitions or nightmares. Satan knows this. Therefore, his great focus is not primarily on how to scare Christians with weird phenomena (though there’s plenty of that), but on how to corrupt Christians with worthless fads and evil thoughts.

Satan wants to catch us at a time when our faith is not firm, when it is vulnerable. It makes sense that the very thing Satan wants to destroy would also be the means of our resisting his efforts. That’s why Peter says, “Resist him, firm in your faith.” It is also why Paul says that the “shield of faith” can “extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16).

The way to thwart the devil is to strengthen the very thing he is trying most to destroy — your faith.

John Piper 

He fires the starting pistol, then runs alongside you

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…. Hebrews 12:2a

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Faith comes from beholding the Lord Jesus Christ, from looking at Him. If we will look to Jesus, He will be the author and finisher of our faith. The word “author” in the Greek literally means “example,” “leader,” or “originator.” Jesus is the example of faith, but He’s also the originator of our faith.

You see, all the other heroes of the faith mentioned in Hebrews 11 can cheer us on, but they’re not our chief example. Only Jesus is the One who never sinned, who never failed. The more you behold the Lord Jesus Christ, the more you’ll find out He is the author and finisher.

He’s the one who originates the grace. He’s the one who fires the starting gun. He’s the goal toward which we run. He is the coach who runs alongside us and gives us courage and strength to run the race.

ACTION POINT:

It is Jesus all the way. If you want faith, fix your eyes upon Jesus Christ. Keep “looking unto Jesus.” Your faith will grow. You’ll be greatly strengthened for your race.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Jesus Keeps His Sheep

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31–32)

Though Peter, in fact, failed miserably, by denying Jesus three times, the prayer of Jesus preserved him from utter ruin. He was brought to bitter weeping and restored to the joy and boldness that showed itself in Peter’s message at Pentecost. Jesus is interceding for us today in the same way that our faith might not fail. Paul says this in Romans 8:34.

Jesus promised that his sheep would be preserved and never perish. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27–28).

The reason for this is that God works to preserve the faith of the sheep. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

We are not left to ourselves to fight the fight of faith. “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

You have the assurance of God’s word that, if you are his child, he will “equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ” (Hebrews 13:21).

Our endurance in faith and joy is finally and decisively in the hands of God. Yes, we must fight. But this very fight is what God works in us. And he most certainly will do it, for, as it says in Romans 8:30, “Those whom he justified he also glorified.” The glorification of God’s justified children is as good as done.

He will lose none of those he has brought to faith and justified.

John Piper