God's Purpose And Destiny For Our Lives

In order to fulfill our destiny, we have to be transformed to be more' like God. We were created in His image, but we have been marred by sin. We have been misshaped and deformed by the fall, and that inhibits our ability to move in the fullness of all that God has destined for us.

Fortunately, the blood of Jesus overcomes the power of sin in our lives. It enables us to be transformed into His nature and image, so that we can fulfill our destiny and do the things that we were crated to do.

However, God doesn't transform us instantly, He works through a process in our lives. It is the process of growing and maturing to be more like Jesus, so that we will be better able to fulfill our destiny. We started to look at that a couple of lessons ago. We discovered that God sort of chips away at the "wrong" things in our nature--the parts that don't belong there--in order to uncover our real/transformed nature.

We looked at one of the things that God uses to do this in our last lesson: trials, hardship, and difficulty. But hardship is not the only thing God uses to make us grow and mature.

There are times when God uses the temptations that come into our lives. Now, temptation is not designed by God, it is designed by the enemy. It is intended to destroy you and to ruin you. But God can use anything. He can use any hand that He is dealt--and He is going win. Do you understand that? If you give Him a pair of twos, God is going win. God is going to win with any hand dealt there.

So He is even going to use a temptation there, because what temptation does is to confront us with a choice: "Who will I serve? Who will be My master? And who will I love?"

Jesus was tempted. Let me tell you what temptation is not--it is not a sin to be tempted. The bible says this about Jesus in Matthew 4:1, "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil." Some people think, 'I can't believe I'm being tempted again.' Well, that is going to happen--even Jesus was tempted, so don't feel bad. It just means that you are like Him; temptation is part of the course.

I also want you to realize this, that in whatever way you're tempted, you are not like the first one to have that temptation. It is not like God or the devil singled you out. It is not really a sign of weakness to be tempted, even though some of us beat ourselves up over it. "I'm such a bad person. Oh, I was tempted again." Well, that is the devil's plan. Temptation was designed to ruin you, to take you out. But, if you go the opposite way, then you ruin his plans, because that will bring you into maturity. It teaches us to obey.

You'll never outgrow temptation. I wish we could, don't you? But, temptation will continue. You will never get to a place where you outgrow it. But there is a way to deal with it: you can confront it.

Look what Jesus did while He was being tempted by the devil in Matthew 420. He said these great words: "Get out of here, Satan."

Write down those great words: "Get out of here, Satan." Jesus told him, "Scripture says, worship only the Lord and Him only." Worship the Lord and Him only, just like Jesus did. You are going to go through temptation, and you are going be tempted by many things. Some people are tempted by money. They have to decide who their God is, who they are going to love. When the temptation comes, are you going choose money or are you going choose God?

Money is not the only temptation. Maybe it is reputation? Or maybe it is comfort? These are all temptations. God wants us to get through this.

Let me just give you five ways to confront, or react properly to temptation.

Number 1: we should pray daily that we can avoid it. That comes right from the Lord's Prayer. He said in Matthew 6:13, "Do not cause us to be tempted but save us from the evil one." Here is a more traditional translation for those of you who have memorized the Lord's prayer: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."

I think there are a lot of things can be avoided if we just ask God at the start of the day to keep it away. We can't keep it all away. But there is a lot that can be avoided if we just ask God in advance: "Lord, please keep it away." We know this is a valid way to pray because Jesus is the one who told us to pray that way.

Number 2: Some temptation are meant to be "run from" rather than resisted. We know Jesus confronted, because He said "get behind Me, Satan." But there are some things that do not try to resist and you do not try to confront--you simply run from them. 1 Corinthians 6:18 says, "Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body."

I'm telling you, when it comes to sexual sin, do not try to resist! Do not try to confront that one. The Bible says to run away, and the reason is because sin is a natural appetite to the body. You are fighting against the design of the body; therefore, whenever you are confronted in this area, you do not try to resist. You don't say 'Get behind me, Satan.' No, you turn and you run. This temptation takes out more people and more leaders than any other area, because they thought they were strong enough to resist. The Bible doesn't tell us to resist that area, it says to run from that area.

With some temptations, (not just sexual ones), you don't try to resist, you don't try to confront, you get out of there.

Number 3: Change your environment as much as possible. It is like the guy who said this: "Every time I go to that bar, I get drunk." What do you tell that guy? "Don't go to that bar." We have a recovery ministry at our church, and one of they things we teach them is that they to change their environment to overcome this type of temptation. We tell them, "We simply change playgrounds and change playmates."

Number 4: Replace old thoughts with new ones. This means fill your mind with things from above. The Bible says fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. The expanded part of that verse is "Whatever is true, whatever is good, whatever is righteous, whatever is worthy of thinking, that's what you dwell upon." That means to replace, which means that you have to put in new thoughts. It's like when you go on a diet. You tell yourself, "I'm not going to think about food." That doesn't work, does it? what do you end up thinking about? Food. Say you are fasting. "Okay, I'm going to fast, I'm not going think about food." All of sudden, you smell everything, you see everything. All you can do is dream about doughnuts or pizza or something.

How do you get past that? You replace those thoughts with something else. If I say don't think about the number four, what are you thinking about? Four. I'm not going think about it. I'm not going think about four. The thing you don't want to think about is on your mind, but you take that four and you multiply by 2, you got 8. You work through the process. You put something else in your mind.

The bible says to renew our mind, and what that means are we put new thoughts into it. We replace those temptation thoughts and carnal thoughts. Don't try to not think about it, instead put something new in its place. Begin to embrace who you are. Begin thinking about the things of God. Begin to say, "This is who I am." Don't fill your mind with that old 'stinking thinking,' fill your mind with the new things. It will help you to resist temptation and get away from it.

Number 5: Get an accountability partner. The bible says this: "you are better off to have a friend than to be alone. If you fall, your friend can help you out." You need to have somebody who you can tell about your temptations. It's embarrassing, I know. It is embarrassing because you say, "I can't believe I was tempted, but remember it's not a sin to be tempted." But you need to be able to say, "This is the way the devil is trying to take me out." This disarms a lot when you bring it to the light. When you hide it and it's in the dark, that is where the devil is going try and work on you to take you out. You have to bring it to the light--the temptations and the failures. You need somebody whose jaw is not going drop too much when you talk to them about the things that you are going through. You need somebody who loves you and who cares about you. You need somebody who accepts you just like you are with all of your "ickies." You all need friends like that. You need an accountability partner.

If you look in the bible, Paul had partners, didn't he? He didn't do anything by himself. He traveled with John Mark for a while, Barnabas for a while, plus Silas, Titus, Timothy, and Epaphras. He had a whole lot of friends that he traveled with, and he always had spiritual partners. Likewise, we need spiritual accountability partners to speak into our lives and to help us. None of us are to the place where we are perfect or we are free from temptation, so we will always need those people in our lives. I have those in mine and I hope that you do as well.