ఓటమికి మరి కొన్ని కారణాలు?|| More Reasons for failure || Telugu Christian Messages
Channel: Raja Devathala
Date: 09/03/2017

We want continue with the subject of our last study as to how we can overcome sin, our biggest problem in all of our life.

We saw, from our last study, two reasons why many Christians don't grow in their Christian life and don't grow to overcome sinful habits. One isthe lack of the fear of God, and the other is the lack of faith. You see faith is a personal thing. We saw that Jesus can keep people from falling. Now that is a fact; an intellectual fact that even the devil believes in. But, to personally believe that Jesus can keep you from falling when you are tempted, that quality of your heart that can bring you victory, can come only if you have taken the first step of believing what the Bible describes as the seriousness of sin. When you believe that, then you will long to be free from this wretched disease. So faith is a very important factor.

Now a third reason why people keep falling into sin is, because they have not understood that their own flesh, their own human personality and the being that they are, their human strength is totally impotent to do the will of God. We, in our own strength, can never ever overcome sin. Any amount of determination, any amount of self-discipline, anything you like, you can do, but cannot overcome sin because sin is so deeply rooted in our nature. It is like trying to train a pig to be clean. What chance is there of success? Maybe by whipping or feeding and offering it rewards, you can try and get a pig to be clean for a little while. But leave it alone for some time; it reverts back to its original nature. That is how it is with human beings too. This type of overcoming through self-effort is not victory at all. It is just personal self-discipline - a good thing for sure, but not what God offers. No, we need to recognize the weakness of our own flesh, our own weakness.

If you realize this, there will be two things that you will do. First of all, you will run away from temptation; you will not expose yourself to danger. Who are the people who expose themselves to temptation? - Those who don't feel their weakness. One who feels his weakness will run away. That is what the Bible says we should do: flee from youthful lusts; flee from immorality (2 Tim. 2:22). There we read that Paul told, even a godly man like, Timothy to flee from youthful lusts; to flee from the love of money, to flee from idolatry, to flee from immorality. We read all these exhortations in 1 Timothy 6, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Corinthians 10 and 2 Timothy 2. Flee, flee, flee, flee - run away. Why do we run away? Because we realize we are weak. We can overcome many sins if we just obey that one exhortation to run away.

The second thing that a person, who has recognized the weakness of his flesh, will do is that he will pray to God earnestly for help. You see, prayer is a sign of weakness. When do people usually pray, even worldly people? - When they are in real trouble, when nobody else can help them. One of the things that Jesus taught us to pray is - lead us not into temptation. Why do we pray that prayer? -Because we are convinced that our flesh is weak. One would think that someone like Timothy, who had advanced in the Christian life so much, was not in danger of youthful lusts, but even he needed to run away.

Now, if we realize our weakness we will not only want to run away from temptation, but we will also pray, 'Lord, please help me. Give me strength to overcome this weakness.' Just like we need to see the seriousness of sin, we also need to see the weakness of our flesh.

One of the wonderful truth in scripture, that we read is that "Jesus Christ was tempted in all points, as we are" (Heb. 4:15). He did not live on earth without being tempted. In Matthew 4 we are given a very clear description of how He was tempted, at least in three areas. But in Hebrews 4:15, we are told He was tempted in all areas, just like us, but He never sinned.

How is it He never sinned? Was it because He automatically could not sin? Well,