Hollywood says evil is a guy in a hockey mask toting a machete.  The nightly news tells me it looks more like starving children with bloated bellies.  These pictures, though morbid, are not evil.  These are evil’s children, the violent offspring of an idea gone bad.  Really, really bad.

There was a day when evil surfaced as the ultimate alternative lifestyle.  Before evil had a face.  In that day, evil did not look like a plane wreck or starving refugees or even a 1,500 calorie fudge Sunday.  Evil… looked like an idea.   

“You can be as God, knowing good and evil.”

At the time this proposition was made, our ancestors already knew good.  GOOD… was connected to God.

And His kingdom.

And His will.

But evil runs a slick campaign and Adam bought the pitch that he could walk with himself in a way he did not need God  -  in a way a runaway might not need his father.  When Adam ran away from God, he altered the relational DNA of the men who walked behind him.  (That would be you and me). 

Embedded now in every man is a bend towards evil’s impulse.  Evil, you see, has gravitational pull.  There’s a word for this.  It’s called “temptation”.  Temptation is that desire you have to walk with yourself independent from God. 

As center of your own kingdom. 

     In the direction of your own will.

A guy named James (who headed up the early church in Jerusalem) said it this way:

“When desire (for evil) has conceived it gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full grown, gives birth to death”.

Evil, James says, has an end.  That end is called “death”.  Where evil grows, something dies… and Static reigns.       

Somewhere between evil’s conception and the death it yields lies a choice, a choice to walk in a particular direction.  You can either walk with God or you can walk with yourself.

Walking with God is not easy.  It is in fact, impossible.  We need more than help.  We need rescued!  For this reason, Jesus taught His friends to carry their compulsion to wander back into the presence of God. 

Lead us not into temptation, Jesus instructs us to pray.  In other words, “Guard me from that overwhelming desire to travel in my own way.” 

But deliver us from evil  -  “Cause me to about face and walk with You, Oh God!  Rescue me from evil’s gravitational pull.”THIS… is an idea gone good.  In the center of this idea is a total dependence upon God, even for the desire to walk with Him.

If you are losing ground against temptation’s yank, consider that you may be fighting from the low ground  - from that place where you are leaning upon your Self for victory.  If this be the case, you need to know you have a traitor in your midst. 

Your freedom resides within the opening volley of Jesus’ prayer, within relational connection to your heavenly Father.  Temptation will come, you can’t avoid it.  But you don’t have to walk in it.  You need simply to turn around on your Self and walk with God, in that place where evil has no pull

Static!
Part VII

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UNC meets weekly at the Atlanta Bread Company in Cumming GA. Each Friday, the morning’s opening talk is posted to the blog. Don’t forget, you can easily subscribe to our RSS feed.

Also, you can subscribe to our Podcast in iTunes. Start iTunes, enter the iTunes Store, and search for “UNC Friday Morning”.

Static!
Part VI

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UNC meets weekly at the Atlanta Bread Company in Cumming GA. Each Friday, the morning’s opening talk is posted to the blog. Don’t forget, you can easily subscribe to our RSS feed.

Also, you can subscribe to our Podcast in iTunes. Start iTunes, enter the iTunes Store, and search for “UNC Friday Morning”.

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Static!
Part V

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UNC meets weekly at the Atlanta Bread Company in Cumming GA. Each Friday, the morning’s opening talk is posted to the blog. Don’t forget, you can easily subscribe to our RSS feed.

Also, you can subscribe to our Podcast in iTunes. Start iTunes, enter the iTunes Store, and search for “UNC Friday Morning”.