Who on a diet would leave a coconut cake iced and out on display right in the middle of the dining room table?
What about an alcoholic stopping at a liquor store to pick up a can of beer for beer bread? That's like throwing a lighted match into a puddle of gasoline, and we all know that fire and gasoline don’t mix.
We wouldn't want a Formula One driver doing valet parking at a Corvette convention. Would the city really be safe if we offer an adrenalin junky a bevy of Corvette keys?
A little closer to home, do we store our real-life, shoot-’em-up weapons with our children’s toy guns? Of course, not.
Why, then, do we repent of wrongdoing but not remove the opportunity for wrongdoing from our sight?
The city of Ai was a thorn in Israel’s side. When Israel rose up against her, they destroyed her to a man, except the king.
Joshua was not one to leave things half finished, though. In Joshua 8:29, we read that he hanged the king, and at evening, he cast his body before the gates of his decimated city, and they buried him under a great heap of stones.
The Israelites buried the remnants of their thorn so deeply that it could never be seen or recovered ever again.
That is how we should treat those things that tempt us to sin. Lock the doors, throw away the keys, and pile stones on top of them until we cannot find them any longer. We must make it as difficult as possible for the devil to remind us of those things he would use to bring us down.
If we’re tempted around loads of cash, how about we quit that job at the bank and work somewhere else. Is desiring our neighbor’s flesh our weakness? Perhaps we should move to the other side of town. Alcohol? Break all the bottles. Cigarettes? Use pay-at-the-pump. Bad language? Carry a recorder and replay what we say. Right then. In front of our grandmother.
Bury those temptations under a great heap of stones. What’s hard to get to is even harder to fall into. Then, the longer we keep ourselves separated from that which so easily besets us, the easier it will be to cast it aside forever.
When we are truly free, what has tripped us up in the past will no longer interest us.
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Code: FGO.D.24.14b.vp