We need to recognize there is a power behind the things of this world that the Lord has warned us not to partake of. Often when we get saved, there is a temptation to do something we know now is wrong, and that we are told not to do in his word, by his commandments. Touch no unclean thing. Keep thyself pure. Avoid the appearance of evil, abstain from evil. He warns against the works of the flesh, against greed, lying, murder, hate, envy, malice, etc. He commanded these things for our protection-not to deny us some "fun" or make us miserable. He knows there are powers behind these things, manifested in various ways, waiting and wanting to lure us into touching and handling and tasting so like a gullible fish we will get hooked, to our own destruction, and be unable to escape without miraculous intervention. For example, adult magazines, porn, whether in a book or a video has a powerful spirit of lust behind it. If you think you can open one of these magazines or watch one of these videos and remain unaffected you are fooling yourself. There are powerful spirits at work behind these things. And they will reach out and grab you. They will hook you, and then they can destroy you. There are other dangers, and I don’t think all these things will manifest themselves in the same ways. TV is an insidious danger to the life of Christ in a believer. If you sit watching programs on TV where there is cursing, blatant sin, and God’s name is being cursed, his commandments broken freely, and this is your entertainment, you are feeding your mind on filth, and it will pollute what is supposed to be the Temple of the Holy Ghost. It will desensitize you to the sinfulness of sin, and distance you from God if you continue in these things. Worse, it will cause you to go to sleep spiritually, and be unable to feel or hear God. It could be the provocation of your flesh. Some one in your life that is continually provoking you to anger and words come out of your mouth you know are not right-and they don’t have to just be curse words. Anything said in anger or bitterness will defile you. According to Jesus it is what comes out of your heart through your mouth into the ears of others that defiles you.

But when you partake of things the Lord has warned you not to, or you know is wrong, then you open yourself up and leave yourself vulnerable to these things. This is what God's commandments are for-to protect and hedge in his people. If we keep them, observe them, we are on safe ground. You better believe the enemy of your soul will send powerful spirits to tempt and try to allure you off the Rock so he can snatch you up. He can't touch you as long as you stay where you are supposed to, unless allowed by the Lord as a means of sifting you or trying your faith in which case there is something the Lord is wanting to accomplish and the enemy is a tool he is using to achieve it. Under that kind of pressure if there are things hidden in our hearts we're not aware of, they will come bubbling up to the surface and be exposed, so they can be dealt with. That is one way the Lord purifies the hearts of his people. He wants our hearts pure so we can see him. Either way, the Lord is the only One who can be trusted, and should be. No wonder he warns us not to lean to our own understanding. (Pro 3:6) There is a way to rise above these things. I know there is.

You are not who you used to be after you are born again. I know that is one reason I was so happy when I first got saved. I felt clean for the first time in my adult life. It was a wonderful feeling. To all of a sudden become aware that God is real, he loves you, and has a good plan for your life, is a miracle in itself. To be able to talk to him, learn about him, get to know him, and know he's there with you that you are not alone in this world with no hope anymore is incredible. Do you know who you are in Him? Do you know that you are complete in him? Do you know that he is all you need? He has the answer to all your problems, and his is the answer to your problems. Only the Holy Spirit can show us who we are in Him and make it real to us.

We need to know who he is. We need to know who we are in Him. We need to understand how vast and how powerful he is in comparison to our puny little problems. For in comparison, our problems are puny compared to his power. When we know the hope of his calling, and what that is, and understand what it means, we won't let anything or anyone steal it from us. What is it? I don't fully understand. But I know this: He wants to fill me with himself, and all his goodness, his life, and having tasted how good he is, (Psa 34:8) having felt his presence, his comforting power in my heartaches, the delight of his word as he opens things previously not understood before to me, and having begun to dig deeper into his word, and getting a greater vision of who he is by seeing how he dealt with Israel and his disciples, both in their failures and in their successes, I have reached this conclusion. He is the delight and desire of my heart. He is more necessary to me than the air I breathe. Without his Holy Spirit and his Presence in my life, I would be completely desolate and totally without hope or life. The more I begin to understand and know him, the more I want of him. To know him is to love him. You cannot truly love someone or trust them until you really know them. As I have learned about the Lord, and felt his presence so real in my life, all around me, I have begun to crave more of him. Even when I fail him, even when I battle guilt and feel ashamed to go pray-there is still a hunger that is ever present in me for Him. In a world where you can hardly trust anyone, where people seem to have forgotten the meaning of love, and are so willing to split up and divorce or kick the child out who displeases, without any patience or willingness to endure personal discomfort for the sake of someone else, the love of God is a treasure to me. Where as people are mostly out for themselves and what's in it for me ? is one of the most common phrases of the day, and where there's so much misery and fear, and people turning to medication seeking peace and relief from stress and fear, oh how wonderful it is to run to the arms of the Lord, to run to his Word, and open the precious pages of this awesome Book and just dive in. People who don't take the time to read it, and dig in are missing such treasure that DOES have a real and intimate application to all of our lives. The Almighty God would not have written a Bible that we could not ever understand or apply to our own lives. It just takes his Holy Spirit and our time and effort and prayer for understanding to dig up the treasure and bring it in the open where we can behold it. It's worth the effort. I have seen times where it was hard to read his word, and felt like a chore. But when I prayed and asked him to make it real to me, help me understand it, help me hunger for it, he was faithful to grant me my request. I felt like I had to apologize to the Lord for even having to make such a request. But he was understanding. He is so good. We must eat his word, and let it become a part of us. It's life to our spirit. It will grow us up in the Lord and mature us just as milk and food does babies into adults.