Giving Opportunity to God

Sin is a powerful force in the lives of God's children.  It entered humanity as a result of choice; first by doubt, then by distortion, then by outright denial of the Creator's words.  Since then, each person is born into a sin nature - an innate desire to please ourselves and disobey the Lord.

Because sin is so destructive, it is obvious that we must avoid it with everything.  After all, sin is everything opposite of God's nature, and darkness can have no presence with light (1 John 1:5).

However, oftentimes we approach sin in the wrong way.  We think of it as a decision to make only when we are faced with it - a "cross that bridge when I come to it" mentality.  But if this is our approach to sin, we will constantly fail.

Ephesians 4:27 tells us to "give no opportunity to the devil."  You see, the devil tempts us when we give him an opportunity.  We give it to him.  Freely!  We give him opportunity when we put ourselves in a position that makes it easier to sin.

We can put ourselves in a position to sin in many ways.  For instance, it could be in switching the TV to that channel that we know can sometimes be inappropriate or even hanging out with friends whom we know can be gossipy.  Whether through friends, media, or even time management, we can often put all the pieces in place that will make it hard for us to avoid sin.

Thus, in order to avoid putting ourselves in a position to sin, we must avoid any opportunity that might make it easy to do something contrary to the Father's will, even in practical ways.  But there's even more than that.

In 2 Chronicles 12, we find that the king of Judah, Rehoboam, did evil "for he did not set his heart to seek the Lord" (2 Chronicles 12:14).  From this and many other instances in scripture, it is clear that in order to avoid giving opportunity to the devil, we must first give opportunity to God.

In other words, the best (and only) way to avoid a position of sin is to purposefully put ourselves in a position to honor the Lord - to put all the pieces in place to make it easier to avoid the temptation of sin.  This, of course, implies that in all of the practical ways we mentioned previously (media, friends, etc.) must be used to seek and honor the King of kings!

Sin is a powerful force in the lives of God's children.  But even more powerful is our Father in Heaven!  Let us use every opportunity - every venue - to put ourselves in a position to bring glory to the One Who gave us salvation!

Do you have practical ways in which you put yourself in a position to honor the Lord?  Tell us in the comment section!