It’s been my experience that the closer you are to God’s will for your life, the more temptations you encounter. I know for me, when I was wrestling with starting this blog, everything came down on me. All my diversions and insecurities, all those things we should place firmly into God’s hands, were weighing me down and I was wandering somewhere off the path. Three things were really holding me back, each interconnected with and strengthening the others. First of all, I felt the immense weight of my sin, and it kept me from turning back to God. I was filled with self-pity and an unhealthy, irreverent fear of Him. Secondly, spurned on by that fear and self-pity, I belittled my God-given talents and testimony. I thought that there was no way a man like me could contribute to God’s plan. Thirdly, because I felt useless I became useless and wallowed in my sin. I took on an incredibly lazy and self-serving lifestyle, and by doing so, I justified my earlier doubts. When, by the grace of God, I finally realized what was going on, all of that melted away and I gained a renewed vigor. All these things were being whispered in my ears to keep me from acting. Each of them are things I do struggle with on a daily basis, and I’ve been learning to give them up to God more and more, but I’d still allowed the devil to play me for a time. So what does God’s word say about these particular struggles? Well first of all I’ll turn your attention to Isiah 53:12:

"Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death 
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many, 
and makes intercession for the transgressors."

He, being Jesus, “bore the sin of many,” including mine. My sins aren’t a burden I have to carry anymore because of the atoning work of Jesus Christ. As far as fear goes, well, we have to examine 1 John 4:16-19:

"16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us."

With a love for God, from God, we are always free to approach him without fear. We may yet receive guiding discipline from His hand, but we’ve no call to fear the wrath set aside for the unrepentant. On my second point we needn’t look any father than King David. in Acts 13 Paul, during his recanting of Jewish history, says in verse 22:

"And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, 'I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.'"

He was a centerpiece in God’s redemptive plan through the Messiah Jesus Christ; he was also an adulterer and a murderer. One great thing about the Bible is that it doesn’t hold back from telling how frail and human it’s heroes were; it shows us that God can use anyone. By now you can see how misinformed my third point was. God never once viewed me as I viewed myself. This is my greatest personal struggle: to view myself through the eyes of God as a being created in His image and saved by His grace. It holds me back from the communion of prayer and Bible study. I’ve also learned that when temptation is particularly heavy upon me, there’s probably a good work prepared for me up ahead; after all, why shouldn’t Satan try harder to stop me the closer I am to completing the task?

God Bless.