Temptation

Ridin for the Boss and the Brand, page 16

Fact: we can never be good enough to meet
God’s requirements for salvation.
Fact: we are all sinful, no matter how
charitable we are.
Fact: the wages of sin is death.
Fact: God only accepts the death of Jesus as payment for our sins.
Fact: if you admit and confess how you have
failed to meet God’s desires;
if you ask for His forgiveness and help to turn from your sinful ways;
if you ask Jesus to take control of your life and believe He will do it
God will be faithful to His promise and will write your name in His Book of Life.

Here’s where that stumbling block comes in.
It is difficult to give up control of our lives when everywhere we turn, we see beautiful people in beautiful settings luring us to believe we could be one of them.
Of course that takes the right car, the right deodorant, the right stock broker and so forth.

Temptation

TV shows and magazines
are selling stuff with sexy scenes.
Movies where the bad guy wins
and never answers for his sins
are telling me that I could be
more happy than I am.
Come on, give in, don’t be a fool,
everybody cheats in school.
And only goody-goodies frown
at drinking beer or sleeping ’round.
It seems to me that I can be
more popular than I am.
I am confused. I feel abused
and cry out in frustration,
“Help me today live life Your way;
lead me not into temptation.”
Cheat on my expense account,
no one’s gonna find me out.
Fudge a little on my taxes;
no one cares; besides the fact is
plain to see I can be
much richer than I am.
Drugs and sex and alcohol,
why not give in and have a ball?
When everything is said and done,
material girls have all the fun.
Society is showing me
who is better than I am.
Temptation’s natural, not a sin,
unless, of course, I just give in.
I call on God’s unending power
to help me through my darkest hour
and then I see God’s will for me
can strengthen who I am.
I’ve been confused and felt abused;
I’ve wrestled with frustration.
But with the love from God above
I’ve triumphed o’er temptation.

All this visual temptation will give you “I” trouble. But you won’t be the first to suffer from that.

“How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.
Isaiah 14: 12-15