There's a battle between the eagle and the wolf.

The eagle inside of me

represents everything that is good and pure.

And even though it soars through the valleys,

it still lays its eggs on the mountain tops.

There's a wolf inside of me.

And the wolf preys upon my weaknesses

and justifies itself in the presence of the pack.

Who will win the war between the eagle and the wolf?

The one that you feed

The words of Dag Hammarskjold -- Secretary General of the UN in the mid and late 1950's throb with wisdom:

You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn't reserve a plot for weeds.

“Sludging it or fudging it??” Or “Pardon me but your show Is slipping. “

n    What is this “sludge? 

James calls it moral filth.  It is that which is plainly corrupt and decadent.  I know of people in our society today who are quicker to identify evil in the world today then others who call themselves Christians.

It is the sort of thing that collects almost unconsciously and it carries a great cumulative effect.  Sludge in the gas tank.  Brought the car to a grinding hault.

Immorality is the cumulative product of small indulgences and minuscule compromises, the immediate consequences of which were, at the time, indiscernible.

n      Randy Alcorn in Leadership, Vol. 9, no. 1.

[Worldly] compromise is so hard to find.  It is not an issue that you easily identify, fight, picket, or bomb.  It's slippery.  It's illusive.  It conceals itself in the highest places and wraps its evil tentacles around the most bedrock truth.  It disguises itself with much good intention and, when uncovered, it excuses itself repeatedly with helpless cries of fatalism.  Compromise is primarily a heart issue and this is what makes it so hard to find.  How do you examine the heart? 

n      John Fischer in Contemporary Christian Music (Feb. 1987).  Christianity Today, Vol. 31,  no. 11.

n      “Fudging” in spiritual living  

Prevailing Sins

   A recent survey of Discipleship Journal readers ranked areas of greatest spiritual challenge to them:

 1. Materialism

 2. Pride

 3. Self-centeredness

 4. Laziness

 5. (Tie) Anger/Bitterness

 5. (Tie) Sexual lust.

 7. Envy

 8. Gluttony

 9. Lying

   Survey respondents noted temptations were more potent when they had neglected their time with God (81 percent) and when they were physically tired (57 percent). Resisting temptation was accomplished by prayer (84 percent), avoiding compromising situations (76 percent), Bible study (66 percent), and being accountable to someone (52 percent).

Discipleship Journal, 11-12/92. "To Verify," Leadership.

We cannot let the masses determine what is wrong or right for us.  We cannot do it on our own even.  There must always be a source in our lives that is more trustworthy and consistent.  It must be the Word of God.

Getting rid of the prevalent evil in our lives is to stay away from the type of sin that is commonly accepted.  Dealing with the “prevalent evil” is more difficult than dealing with those things that are obviously “filth” for that which is prevalent is that which is widely accepted and it is our acceptance of these things that weakens our society as a whole.

Sin arises when things that are a minor good are pursued as though they were goals in life.  If money or affection or power are sought in disproportionate, obsessive ways, then sin occurs.  And that sin is magnified when, for these lesser goals, we fail to pursue the highest good and the finest goals.  So then we ask ourselves why, in a given situation, we committed a sin, the answer is usually one of two things.  Either we wanted to obtain something we didn't have, or we feared losing something we had.

n      Augustine in The Confessions of St. Augustine (Christian Classics in Modern English).  Christianity Today, Vol. 36, no. 14.

Pride is a vice that ill suits those that would lead others in a humble way to heaven. Let us take heed, lest when we have brought others so far, the gates should prove too narrow for ourselves. For God, who thrust out a proud angel, will not tolerate a proud preacher, either. For it is pride that is at the root of all other sins: envy, contention, discontent, and all hindrances that would prevent renewal.  Where there is pride, all want to lead and none want to follow or to agree.

   -- Richard Baxter in The Reformed Pastor.  Christianity Today, Vol. 40, no. 9.

How To Clean Up My Act

q      No more Excuses –

One of the worse things that we can do is to excuse our behavior under any grounds.  When we let ourselves off the hook regardless of how tempting it may be then we perpetuate our failure.   A person who wishes to make changes in his/her life must be ruthless with himself if he wants to gain ground.

The reasons why I'm giving up sports:  football in the fall, baseball in the summer, basketball in the winter.  I've had it all.  I quit attending sports once and for all, and here are my 11 excuses:

1. Every time I went, they asked for money.

2. The people I sat next to didn't seem friendly.

3. The seats were too hard and not comfortable at all.

4. I went to many games but the coach never came to call on me.

5. The referees made decisions that I couldn't agree with.

6. The game went into overtime and I was late getting home.

7. The band played numbers I'd never heard before and it wasn't my style of music.

8. It seems the games are always scheduled when I want to do other things.

9. I suspect that I was sitting next to some hypocrites.  They came to see their friends and they talked during the whole game.

10. I was taken to too many games by my parents when I was growing up.

11. I hate to wait in the traffic jam in the parking lot after the game.

In the gardens of Hampton Court you will see many trees entirely vanquished and well nigh strangled by huge coils of ivy that are wound about them like snakes. There is no untwisting the folds, they are too giant-like, and fast fixed, and every hour the tiny roots of the climber are sucking the life out of the unhappy tree. Yet there was a day when the ivy was a tiny aspirant, only asking a little aid in climbing. Had it been denied then, the tree would never have become its victim, but by degrees the humble weakling grew in strength and arrogance, and at last it assumed the mastery, and the tall tree became the prey of the creeping, insinuating destroyer. The moral is too obvious. Sorrowfully do we remember many noble characters who have been ruined little by little with insinuating habits. Drink has been the ivy in many cases. Watch out, lest some slow advancing sin overpower you. Those who are murdered by slow poisoning die just as surely as those who take arsenic.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, Inc, 1990)

q      Learn the Triggers.  There are certain things that all of us have that make us more vulnerable to sin.   They may not in themselves be sin but they make us more likely to sin.  If we truly want to be free in certain areas of our lives we must identify and eradicate the things that tend to lead us there.

Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in him.

Saint Augustine in The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 12.

q      Discern Your True Desires

I think that much of our defeat comes because we really don’t want to be any different..  If I asked you today to raise your hand if you really  would rather be somewhere else today – how many might raise their hands.  You are here out of a sense of duty, wondering why the sermon may be boring or hard to understand, counting the minutes until we are through.  There are particular sins that have us bound and locked up securely.  We have lost the ability to struggle against it because we actually love what holds us back.

Knowledge of what sin is in inverse ratio to its presence; only as sin goes do you realize what it is; when it is present you do not realize what it is because the nature of sin is that it destroys the capacity to know you sin.

Oswald Chambers, Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 11.

q      Taking Control

It is not God’s will that there should be anything in any of our lives that rules or masters us.  Don’t fool yourselves by telling yourself that you could quit at any time.  If you could then you would – if you quit for periods of time then you didn’t quit at all, you just stopped for awhile.

When sin is let in as a beggar, it remains in as a tyrant. The Arabs have a fable of a miller who one day was startled by a camel's nose thrust in the window of the room where he was sleeping. "It is very cold outside," said the camel, "I only want to get my nose in."

The nose was let in, then the neck, and finally the whole body. Presently the miller began to be extremely inconvenienced at the ungainly companion he had obtained in a room certainly not big enough for both.

"If you are inconvenienced, you may leave," said the camel. "As for myself, I shall stay where I am."

There are many such camels knocking at the human heart. A single worldly custom becomes the nose of the camel, and it is not long before the entire body follows. The Christian then finds his heart occupied by a vice which a little while before peeped in so meekly.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, Inc, 1990)

The trick is to do this while not losing sight of the following:

q      It is not my place to superimpose my convictions on others.

q      It is counter productive for me to promote my own righteousness in the process.

q      Others deserve the privilege of process just as we have enjoyed it ourselves.

q      This must be an internally focused effort.  God awakens me to sin in my life with the intent to change me and through my life to influence others.  I however am the supreme concern and I must give my attention to my biggest project – me.

The Cure For Heart Disease

q      The Word Of The Doctor

I had a certain degree of difficulty convincing my Dad that he had a heart attack recently.  I stood in the room with him as the doctor told him that he had experienced this.  Still to this day, Dad questions if this actually happened to him.  You see, as my brother observed, a doctor spends a vast amount of time and financial resources to train to practice.  Now Dad on the other hand bought a book for $15.00.  Pretty obvious who you should trust isn’t it???

The word of the doctor is good brothers and sin will kill you in one way or another.

q      Being a Good Patient

James says that we should “humbly” accept the word.  You are the patient and your job is to follow directions without putting up a fuss.  What in the world is it about us that each one imagines that the rules don’t apply to us or that they ought to be bent somehow?

q      Letting The Medicine Work

Hypertension, the silent killer.  There are people who have to live on blood pressure medication for the rest of their days here on earth.

The Man In The Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for self

And the world makes you king for a day,

Just go to a mirror and look at yourself,

And see what THAT man has to say.

For it isn't your father or mother or wife

Who judgment upon you must pass;

The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the one staring back from the glass.

Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum

And call you a wonderful guy,

But the man in the glass says you're only a bum

If you can't look him straight in the eye.

He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest

For he's with you clear up to the end,

And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test

If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years

And get pats on the back as you pass,

But your final reward will be heartaches and tears

If you've cheated the man in the glass.

He is gone, but his works survive.  His manuscript Temptation is one of the best I've ever read on the subject. Bonhoeffer's vivid description of our tendency to turn off the warnings when sin's allurements wink at us needs to be declared to every generation:

   In our members there is a slumbering inclination towards desire which is both sudden and fierce.  With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh.  All at once a secret, smoldering fire is kindled.  The flesh burns and is in flames. It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money, or, finally, that strange desire for the beauty of the world, of nature.  Joy in God is... extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature.

   At this moment God is quite unreal to us, he loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real; the only reality is the devil. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God. And now his falsehood is added to this proof of strength.  The lust thus aroused envelopes the mind and will of man in deepest darkness.  The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us.  The questions present themselves:  "Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case?"  "Is it really not permitted to me, yes -- expected of me, now, here, in my particular situation, to appease desire?"  The tempter puts me in a privileged position as he tried to put the hungry Son of God in a privileged position.  I boast of my privilege against God.

   It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God.

Voltaire said that there are three things that are difficult: "To keep a secret, to suffer an injury, to use leisure." He was certainly right. And each of the three is a potential source of temptation. How hard it is to keep a confidence when the telling of it would be such pleasure! How hard it is to suffer an injury and neither complain nor strike back! And how poorly most of us use our leisure time.

n      Robert C. Shannon, 1000 Windows, (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company, 1997).