Monday, January 18, 2010

God and Temptation

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”- 1 Corinthians 10:13

So as I read this passage, I remembered one of the sermons from pastor Howard. He talked about a passage in Job that talked about how God allows Satan to tempt us, so that we may prove to Satan how faithful we are to God. The story goes on and Satan does terrible things to Job to try and get him to curse God, however Job never does. Instead he keeps insisting that it is he that is doing something wrong and must ask for forgiveness from God. Even when 3 of Job's friends come and scold Job for thinking such a thing, Job never gives up on God. In the end, God is proud of Job and greatly rewards him for his good deeds, and Satan's plans are foiled once again.

Anyways, my point is that I believe this is how we should believe in God. I've noticed how selfish I am in thinking that God should keep on giving to me, when He is everything to me. I mean, He is so great that I can't even give anything of worth to him but my praises. Even that, it's not enough. Everything in this world is from him, we can't even hope to offer him anything. So when one bad things happens in our lives, we usually blame God for it or ask him to help us. I'm not saying it's wrong to do that, because even Jesus did it. He cried to God when he was put on the cross "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" So if even Jesus did it, I think we'd be allowed to do it as well, but that's besides the point. What I'm trying to say is that we usually blame God during bad times or only ask for help during the bad times like the Israelites did when going to the promised land. Instead, we should ask God what we are doing wrong and how we can please him like Job (a man who God himself said "is upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil").

After the retreat, I was seeing the major flaws in my ways and now want to change. I want to be more of a person like Job who believes in God with all of his heart, mind, and soul. When God allowed afflictions to burden him, Job still believed in God with his all. I want to be able to do that. When times of trouble come up, I want to be able to get through them while praising God and not blame him.

Well there are more things on my mind, but everything I'm thinking about is in a huge mess. So I'll write some more another time.

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