Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! I’m your host BJ Sipe – I’m a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. In this podcast we take everyday, ordinary events and explore how they can teach us extraordinary, eternal truths. I’m so glad that you joined me for this episode. Now, let’s open up our minds, our hearts, and our Bible’s together.
Spring is officially upon us! Although, you wouldn’t know it from the insane weather the US has been having over this past week. Did you see that it snowed in the Pacific Northwest earlier this week? It never snows in Portland, and yet they got a fairly thick blanket here in the middle of April. Nothing like the Dakotas though – some places got as much as 40 inches over this week! I can’t even begin to fathom that amount of snow. Here in Kentucky, we have just had severe thunderstorms with strong, damaging winds and tornado warnings. Luckily in our area no tornados touched down, although I have seen some damage across the state in other places from last night, thankful nothing as bad as the supercell that came through in December of last year. But after all that rain and thunderstorms, today we have had an absolutely beautiful day! Clear, blue skies with the temperature sitting right around 65 degrees. The kids played outside nearly the entire day to soak up the sunshine. I walked outside with them this morning and the first thing I did was gasp, like a full-blown audible gasp. Now the things I was gasping at you ask? Dandelions. Allow me to explain. I pulled out the old lawn mower and got it turned over on Monday to give our lawn it’s first cut of the season. Naturally, it’s going to be a few weeks until the grass is tall enough for me need to cut it again. However, as I walked out into our backyard, it was as though 2 weeks had aged over night as the entire backyard was overrun with long stems of dandelion flowers. It looked as though I had not even touched our yard at all, I just couldn’t believe it! This made my daughter and son extraordinarily happy, who love to pick the flowers and bring them into their mother or stick them into a mason jar with water. I had a very different response, because I put all that work in mowing our yard, even through the rain that started halfway through my mowing job, only for it to once again already need mowed. I went ahead and googled it, and as it turns out, some dandelions can even grow overnight up to three inches! That baffled my mind how something can be cut down at the base, only to have it reemerge the very next day or two as though you had done nothing about it at all. It’s maddening! I will more than likely end up getting some kind of spray or whatever from Lowe’s here in town to counteract these fast growing flowers, otherwise we’re going to end up having one of those yards that earns you the title “those neighbors” if you know what I mean. But until then, if you were curious as to what I might be up to this Saturday, I think my yard has conveniently already made some plans for me.
Maybe dandelions aren’t something that you have to deal with on a regular basis, but I think that these little flowers can very easily represent something else that we are all plagued with on a daily basis – and that is temptation. While we are living, we will always deal with temptation, because we struggle with our fleshly lusts and desires. Consider what we read in the first chapter of James, beginning in vv. 13, “No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.” Consider also the words of Peter in 1 Peter 5:8-9, “Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.” Every single one of us deals with temptation, and it’s important to recognize and clarify a few things before we make our driving point. First, temptation does not come from the Lord, but it comes from the Devil. Satan is a great deceiver, and he tempts us to act on our desires in a way that is sinful and does not glory God. Second, temptation in and of itself is not a sin – just as our desires in and of themselves are not sinful – but it is the acting on those desires in an ungodly way which is. For example, feeling hungry is not sinful; God designed us to consume food and need it. However, Satan could tempt one to steal from another rather than work for their food. Acting in such a way would be wrong. Or for another example, sexual desire is not in and of itself wrong, in fact God created sex and it is a beautiful thing to be practiced in the institution of marriage as he has designed. However, when we act outside of God’s design of marriage to fulfill those desires, be it pornography, premarital sex, or an affair, we have sinned and fallen to temptation. But temptation is everywhere, because while we are alive in this world, Satan will relentlessly attack us. And that is the thing that we need to understand and recognize, because sometimes that can be extraordinarily discouraging. Have you ever been tempted about something, and you rise up and flee from Satan, leaving you feeling strong and confident – only to have that same temptation pop up in the next few days? I know I have. It can be maddening, can’t it? Where you ask yourself, “What is wrong with me? Why do I keep getting tempted to act how I shouldn’t? I should be past this by now!” Well…yes and no. In the sense that as we grow and mature spiritually, yes there will be some temptations that get easier to overcome and perhaps visit us less frequently. However, no in the sense that you will never again struggle against temptation. I don’t care if you’re 19 or 99, temptation is going to be a part of your life. It’s what you chose to do with it that is so important. My dad always told me the following expression, “You can’t keep a bird from flying through your tree, but you can keep it from nesting there.” In other words, temptations will enter into your mind, that you cannot help – but you can help from dwelling on them and entertaining them in your thoughts. The first step in our fight against temptation is to ensure that we are daily setting our minds on things above, and not giving Satan a foothold in our minds by dwelling on temptation. Secondly, you’ve got to get out that mower. When temptation pops up, we cut it right back down – but how? Through the power of Jesus Christ & the Holy Spirit. It might come as a surprise that even Jesus was tempted, and yet he was without sin (see Hebrews 4:15). We are not given many glimpses into this part of Jesus life, but we do have one that is revealed to us where Satan tempted Christ as he fasted for 40 days prior to his ministry in Matthew 4:1-11. Every time Satan tempted the Lord, Jesus would respond back with the following: “It is written” followed by Scripture. Jesus leaned upon the truth, wisdom, and power of his Father & his revealed word to overcome temptation. Scripture is likened to a sword, and just like mower blades, when temptation pops up we should be ready with the Word to empower us & cut it back down. Temptation will always be there, but through Jesus, we can overcome!
Thank you for tuning in to today’s episode, and I would invite you back Tuesdays-Fridays for a brand-new episode each day. If you haven’t already, be sure to find us on Facebook for occasional announcements and special video sessions. If you have benefited from this podcast, please if you’re able be sure to share it with someone else that you think could benefit from it as well. Until next time, know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each & every day set our minds above.
