Help Wanted

Daily Reading: Ezekiel 14-15

These men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? (Ezekiel 14.3)

Devotional Thought: "What's the difference between temptation and sin?"  "If I am tempted, am I sinning?"  "When does temptation become sin?"  Questions like these were part of a conversation I had with my friend Matt, a new follower of Jesus.  To show how temptation leads to sin, I told him a Bible story.  (Imagine that - me telling a Bible story!)

Achan, a warrior in the battle of Jericho, exemplifies the journey from temptation to sin: "Achan answered Joshua, 'Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and tookthem. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath'" (Joshua 7.20-21).  Notice the components leading from temptation to sin.  First Achan looked, then he desired, then he took, and then he hid. 

Ezekiel wrote about the interior components when temptation leads to sin:

·       Heart.  Somewhere along the line, the elders of Israel decided that God was not enough for them.  They looked at the idols of the world, wishing they could have them as gods.

·       Face.  The elders then made the fatal mistake.  They did not turn away from the temptation. Instead, they set the idols before their faces.

·       Silence.  God became silent.  He was there to help, but they could not hear him for they were in a position of stubborn refusal.  "I can handle it."

God helps in temptation.  But we must want his help.

Prayer: Jesus, I know that you were tempted just like me, yet you did not sin.  I also know that you have promised to make a way of escape from temptation.  Help me, Lord, to expect and to want your help.  Deliver me from evil...  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 31.8-13

8 and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.

9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.

10 For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.

11 Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.

12 I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.

13 For I hear the whispering of many—terror on every side! — as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.