THE LIBERATING PLEASING OF GOD

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.

Ecclesiastes 7:26 

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Have you ever been trapped in sin?

I hope your answer is yes for the truth of the matter is that all of mankind has been afflicted by sin since the fall of Adam and Eve in Eden (Genesis 3). What God made as perfect and in His own image became tainted forever and wickedness entered the scene to compete with righteousness. It’s remained that way ever since, throughout all of the scriptures and in the hearts of people today.

Sounds bleak and it would be if we didn’t have a way to set ourselves free from the sin that seeks to bind us up. That way is highlighted in our feature verse from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 7. Let’s take a look at it now.

I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare (v26).

If you asked someone today if anything was worse than death, I’m not sure you would get too many responses. A majority of people love life and despite its hardships and difficulties, living is better than not. But if we look at the words of Solomon, given to him and to us by God, we find that there is one thing more bitter than death. It’s the entrapment of sin.

Within the verse, the imagery for sin is found in an enticing woman who would want to tempt a man into some sort of sexual immorality. The bait for the trap is the pleasure the woman is offering and she seeks to lure the man into her snare using her evil heart and hands to shackle her victim up in his transgression.

Satan uses temptations of many kinds to try and lure us into sin by appealing to any number of worldly pleasures. Go to the list of actions that people are to turn from found in Galatians, Chapter 5 and you will find many of these illicit pleasures listed, pleasure such as sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, selfish ambition, drunkenness, orgies, and the like (v19-21).

What warning does the word of God give us if we choose to live this way, choosing sin as we surrender ourselves to the acts of the flesh?

The holy word of the Lord tells is that whoever adopts these sinful behaviors will not inherit the kingdom of God (v21).

Now you know why falling prey to the inducement of sin is more bitter than death. For it binds us up and drags us away from the kingdom of God. What could be worse than that?

Well, thanks be to God that He didn’t leave us facing a problem without offering us a solution. For although we face the dangerous lure of Satan and the sin he longs to catch us in every day, the Lord has given us a way to avoid failing and falling, a way to be liberated from the looming dangers that we come up against in this world.

Go back to the verse from Ecclesiastes and these words:

The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.

Remember, at the root of temptation is a pleasure that serves as the bait whether it is lust or power or greed to name a few. The way we counter these alluring pleasures is to shift our focus on pleasure toward giving it instead of receiving it.

For when we turn our desire toward pleasing God and seek to carry out His will and way with every fiber of our being, then and only then will we be able to escape the clutches of Satan and sin.

That’s it. It’s so simple. Please God and be set free from sin. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). If your pleasures and desires are what you treasure, then sin will be in your heart and you will give into the acts of the flesh. But if our hearts are centered on pleasing God as they should be if we are Christians, then we will find ourselves bearing the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and storing up treasures in heaven as we live like Christ, ever pleasing the Father who wants no more than for us to live for and with Him, now and forever.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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