Ff Fight Desire 22
Favio Lavaki
But I think in the end what makes us grow, what helps us evolve, what strengthens us, is our battle of desire over reason. What in the end determines the quality of our best trait, our character, is our desire to overcome what our reason says is likely impossible. Our fighting the hard battles.
I just wanted to say that I am sitting here in Helsinki, Finland reading your blog and you really have an incredible story. I know you probably hear that all the time, but you really are doing a wonderful service. So often people think they can empathize with what a cancer patient goes through, but until reading your blog I really had no idea. Thank you for opening my eyes.
Urgent comes alongside indigenous believers in some of the hardest to reach places on earth. There, we seek to make disciples, multiply churches and provide humanitarian relief in ways that are biblically faithful and practically effective.
For the past six years, I have served in ministry with high school and college students. Throughout this time, I have walked with students as they seek to pursue personal holiness and fight sin in their lives. A year ago, my wife and I ambitiously decided to memorize the book of James. Over about six months, we committed the book to memory.
As I thought about this verse, I reflected on the way that I responded to sin in my life. Typically, I would fall into sin and respond by turning to God, confessing it to my accountability partners, and committing to trying harder next time. This approach is far too reactive and not proactive enough.
When I say personal holiness, I am referring to the active desire to fight the sin in our lives. Sin is prevalent in all of our lives and we must fight it remembering that Christ has purchased our salvation. My desire is to love Christ so much that my sin tastes bitter.
Experiencing victory over sin starts with preparation. The best way that I have found to prepare myself for the fight ahead is by reminding myself why I choose to submit to God rather than submitting to the temptations that arise. This begins with understanding the devastation sin brings and it includes any preventative measure that I take in order to avoid sin. For me, this means starting my day off with Word and prayer and joining an accountability group.
In order to overcome the temptations of the flesh, we ought to seek God in prayer, text an accountability partner, and remove obstacles. When we seek God in prayer, we rely on Him to give us the strength to overcome sinful temptation. We expose the darkness and bring fellow believers into the situation when we text an accountability partner. When we remove obstacles, we remove ourselves from situations that may cause us to fall into temptation.
We can try harder and harder to overcome our sin, but if we do so without embracing Jesus Christ we will fail over and over. In order to overcome temptation, we must rely not on our strength but on the Spirit of God within us.
Fighting for personal holiness should include sharing the result with others. Every time you are tempted, you have an opportunity to confess shortcomings and celebrate victories with those you walk in accountability with.
I was astonished that although I now loved you . . . I did not persist in enjoyment of my God. Your beauty drew me to you, but soon I was dragged away from you by my own weight and in dismay I plunged again into the things of this world . . . as though I had sensed the fragrance of the fare but was not yet able to eat it.
This book is extraordinarily helpful in this regard. Piper begins by giving us the best introduction in all of his writings to our obligation to delight in God. He shows that the Bible tells us not to expect this delight to come automatically, just as constant joy in marriage does not come automatically. Instead, we are to fight for joy.
The rest of the book carefully shows what this fight for joy looks like, pointing time again to Scripture as our guide. The bottom line is simple to summarize: Immerse yourself in the Word! Pray! See God in the world around you! But Piper carefully nuances those instructions, discussing both why they are difficult to follow, and the biblical help to using them effectively.
On Friday, NATO will announce the largest military buildup in Europe since the Cold War. Tensions between the West and Russia have reached the highest level since the fall of the Soviet Union. This week, we will examine the causes of that tension.
Tonight, we begin with Europe's only active front line, in Eastern Ukraine. For two years, fighters for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, with the backing of Russia, have fought the Ukrainian government to gain autonomy. The West, including the U.S., is backing Ukraine's government; 10,000 people have died.
With the help of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, special correspondent Nick Schifrin and producer Zach Fannin traveled to Donetsk, and discovered that what is supposed to be a cease-fire is anything but.
This war is like going back 100 years. This is a trench war, and you can hear some of the explosions in the distance, and not very far away from us. These guys have been fighting here since January, and they say that the front line hasn't moved at all.
On this front line, Anya, who also declined to give her last name, leads what she calls an infantry brigade. The professional Russian soldiers here whom U.S. officials say number in the thousands are invisible.
We had been here just a few minutes when we heard the incoming bullets above our head, so we have taken cover. We're staying low right now, and we're beginning to hear rebel soldiers beginning to fire back.
The entire Ukraine is fighting with us following NATO orders. They are nothing on their own. You are writing that I'm a blonde separatist who will come and start killing your children. Yes, I will do just that.
Today, the children of World War II veterans say this war is against the same enemy. Training for that war starts young. Teenage girls spend Saturday afternoons with Russian Kalashnikovs. The average Russian soldier needs more than 10 seconds to do this; 15-year-old Katerina needs nine seconds.
SERGEY FOMCHENKO, Military Trainer, "Donetsk People's Republic" (through translator): Why, when we look toward Russia, do they call it a crime? In general, the whole of Eastern Ukraine aligns with Russia. I would like us to be part of Russia.
When they're not training, they're proselytizing. The Donetsk military is short on recruits. So the girls hand out recruiting flyers to fighting-age males, anyone between 18 and 55. Katerina also rejects returning to Ukraine, because of what this war has forced her to see.
Downtown, city workers whose salaries are paid by Russia look after public gardens. In supermarkets, the shelves are stocked with Russian products. The only currency accepted is Russian rubles. Residents try and lead normal lives. In the main square, with the Vladimir Lenin statue, families rent toy cars by the hour.
In the opera house built under Stalin, a matinee showing of Giuseppe Verdi's "Masked Ball," the audience was about two-thirds full at $3 a ticket. And across the street, at the Chicago nightclub, an Italian band invited by the local government delivers distraction and ideology.
But this city is an orphan. The Donetsk People's Republic was birthed with the help of Russian soldiers. Today, it's not claimed by Russia, and it's isolated from Ukraine. There are no working banks, and no way to pick up pensions.
But this is where we found Zakharova Vladimirovna and her 3-year-old grandson, Peter. They have spent nearly the entire war on these streets. They invited me in their home. Her husband, Zakharoff Pavlovich, grew up in this house. A Ukrainian rocket landed in their backyard.
Think about it in this way. Many people struggle with healthy eating habits. They want to eat healthy and they know they should. But eating healthy only seems to happen when one is focused on it, battling against the default position of too much sugar and too much food. Healthy eating habits (or dieting as an example) only happen when we purposefully lift them up in our lives.
If generosity is not consistently lifted up in my life, I too often tend toward selfishness. If resolved focus is not consistently lifted up in my life, busyness and distraction become the norm. If love and appreciation for others is not consistently pursued, envy will again show up.
I am tired of fighting. You mention fighting and I just want to let these bad habits and traits go. I prefer to surrender. Just reading this article made me tired and feel hopeless. What about the simple act of just surrendering to a peaceful better way of living?
Wow this was so needed for me today,
i have been told by my G.P. i need to improve my diet, this i already knew so no surprise, and the sands of time are not running out for me, i need to take heed, after praying i got, Guard Against Greed and if you take the first letter of those 3 words it says GAG, which i thought was hilarious, we cannot have it all, God isn,t a meany but He gives us life to the full, but all in moderation,
I thought the wolf story was amasing, you can apply that wisdom to every area of our life,
thank you so much Joshua, and its a process, i hope i remember this, i remember when God said He was enough, I was enough, and I had enough and enough was enough, this was a good guide for me in all area,s of my life,
have a great week
love Jacqueline xxxx
This is very profound and something that reminds me of how important it is to keep our purpose clear. With a strong purpose, I definitely believe that we can stay on the right track to become the person we want to be.
Working on the family-run farm taught her a work ethic at a young age. She also learned to value the land and all that it offered, so when she enrolled at Virginia Tech, she ultimately decided to earn a degree in forestry and pursue a career that aligned with her values.
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