This message is for the believer who knows they belong to God yet still chooses\u2014intentionally and knowingly\u2014to step into sin for the sake of momentary pleasure. You call it \u201cevery now and then\u201d because it feels rare, but you still allow yourself to smoke, indulge in sexual immorality, or flirt with tarot cards and palm readings because the thrill of \u201cknowing your future\u201d feels harmless. You excuse bitterness, envy, recreational drugs, drunkenness, or consuming ungodly content because you\u2019ve convinced yourself it\u2019s not that serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You may reason, \u201cGod knows my heart; I\u2019m only human.\u201d You remind yourself that your spirit is willing but your flesh is weak. You even point to Paul\u2019s words in Romans 7:15\u2014\u201cThe things I want to do, I don\u2019t do; the things I don\u2019t want to do, I sometimes find myself doing.\u201d And with that, you quietly conclude: If Paul struggled, who am I to resist slipping up once in a while?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bible was never meant to be taken out of context or treated like a buffet where we pick and choose verses to excuse our disobedience. If you keep reading Romans 7:17\u201325, Paul isn\u2019t giving believers a free pass\u2014he\u2019s exposing the brutal war between his desire to honor God and the sin still present in his flesh. He delights in God\u2019s law, yet he feels the pull of sin waging war against his mind, dragging him toward what he hates. In anguish he cries, \u201cWhat a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me?\u201d\u2014and immediately declares the only answer: \u201cThanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord.\u201d Paul\u2019s confession doesn\u2019t normalize sin; it unmasks it. He wasn\u2019t shrugging his shoulders at weakness\u2014he was running to Christ for rescue, strength, and victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Romans 6:1\u20132 says, \u201cWhat shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Have you reached the place where your response to sin is, like Paul\u2019s, \u201cGod forbid\u201d? Have you come to the point where sin no longer feels like a temptation you can bargain with, but something you reject immediately\u2014because you\u2019ve learned the flesh is not your friend? If you have not, as Apostle Arome Osayi teaches, Satan will continue to entice you with what is in your heart. That desire will put you in a position where you are no longer capable of balanced thinking. It provokes your will to make a choice you did not process. Your defense protocol is bypassed, and you become a victim of something you are wiser than.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOnce in a while\u201d is a crack that Satan will always use as leverage.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You may think it\u2019s harmless, but what you\u2019re practicing is iniquity\u2014an ongoing, willful rebellion against God. It reveals a heart lacking the fear of the Lord. Psalm 19:7\u20139 says, \u201cThe fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.\u201d When that fear truly lives in you, it becomes the foundation of wisdom and discernment. But when sin becomes a casual pastime, wisdom is absent. You\u2019ve chosen friendship with the world\u2014and James warns that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). This is why David prayed in Psalm 19:13:<\/p>\n\n\n\n David knew that compromise rarely happens all at once. It begins subtly. Small permissions granted to the flesh, tiny crossings of what once felt like a clear boundary. Little by little, the line blurs, and before you know it, you are standing far beyond the place you once swore you would never go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In John 17:14\u201316, Jesus said His followers are not of this world and prayed that the Father would protect them from the evil one while they remain in it. If you are a child of God, you belong to a higher Kingdom. Yet every compromise opens the door to the very evil God seeks to guard you from. The desire to fit in, be accepted, or appear \u201cnormal\u201d draws you into the enemy\u2019s web. In Genesis 4:7, the Lord warned Cain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The danger of \u201conce in a while\u201d is that it slowly trains you to accept sin. Instead of mastering it, you allow it to master you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Join us for Part II as we examine some compromising choices believers make and what Scripture says about them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This message is for the believer who knows they belong to God yet still chooses\u2014intentionally and knowingly\u2014to step into sin for the sake of momentary pleasure. You call it \u201cevery now and then\u201d because it feels rare, but you still allow yourself to smoke, indulge in sexual immorality, or flirt with tarot cards and palm readings because the thrill of \u201cknowing your future\u201d feels harmless. You excuse bitterness, envy, recreational drugs, drunkenness, or consuming ungodly content because you\u2019ve convinced yourself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[46,43,39,48,47,45,42,44,49,37],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncommon","tag-break-the-cycle","tag-consecration","tag-fear-of-the-lord","tag-guard-your-heart","tag-holiness","tag-no-more-compromise","tag-presumptuous-sins","tag-spiritual-warfare","tag-walk-in-the-spirit","tag-willful-sin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":626,"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theayamba.com\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\u201cKeep Your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n