![\"The](\"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/The-Lord-Is.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSo far, in this mini-series, we\u2019ve talked about falling into temptation; worshipping idols; and what things in our life is taking<\/span> precedence over the priority list.\u00a0 Today, I want to talk about how to get back on track when we have fallen into the temptation of worshipping the idols in our lives, and allowing things to take the place of our priorities instead of God.<\/p>\n How do we get back on track and stay there?<\/p>\n Have you sat down and made a list of the things that are getting in the way of you having your quiet time each morning, or quality time with your family, or building a better marriage or relationship with your kids?\u00a0 If not, I would highly encourage you to do so.\u00a0 Be real with yourself.\u00a0 Be honest.<\/p>\n Identify the areas that are showing up over and over again.\u00a0 Is it too much time on Facebook?\u00a0 Is it spending money frivolously?\u00a0 Is work taking up so much of your time you have nothing to give your family?\u00a0 What about television?\u00a0 Is it taking up so much of your time that there is no room for communication in your home anymore?<\/p>\n These are all areas that I had to take a good hard look at in my own life!\u00a0 I know you can probably relate to some of these things yourself.<\/p>\n As I said in #1 above, we have to identify what is causing us to get off track<\/span> first.<\/p>\n After we have discovered the \u201cwhat\u201d, it\u2019s time to discover the why<\/span>.<\/p>\n 2. Identify the \u201cwhy.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Let\u2019s take television as an example. \u00a0\u00a0Ask yourself the following questions:<\/p>\n For myself, I work at home.\u00a0 Until we started taking children into our home from Safe Families for Children, I was home alone most of the daytime hours when my husband would work days.\u00a0 When he worked nights, I was home most of the time alone, because he was either sleeping or working.\u00a0 So I found myself trying to drown out the silence!\u00a0 I needed the noise because otherwise, it was just too quiet!\u00a0 (Now that we have kids in the house, trust me, the silence is no longer an issue!) \u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n But again, I have to go back to why the silence was bothering me.\u00a0 The only thing I could come up with is that the silence represented me being alone.\u00a0 I don\u2019t like to be alone.\u00a0 Yes, there are days where being alone is nice, but when it happens a lot, I don\u2019t like it.\u00a0 I would start to find myself getting bored, or lonely, so I would turn on the television for \u201ccompany\u201d.\u00a0 Sounds weird, huh?\u00a0 To put it in deeper context:\u00a0 I was trying to fill a void in my life.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Identify the \u201chow.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n What happens when we try to fill a void with something other than Jesus?\u00a0 What happens when we cave into our fleshly desires?\u00a0 What happens when we don\u2019t listen to the Holy Spirit prodding us to read the Word, or take a walk, or call a friend, or or or\u2026.???\u00a0 We take our eyes off of Jesus, and we begin to sink, like Peter did in Matthew 14:28-30:<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be you, bid me come to you on the water.\u00a0And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.\u00a0But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n When Peter took his eyes off of Jesus, and began to look at the storm around him, fear crept in, and he began to sink.\u00a0 That\u2019s what happens with us, too, when we take our eyes off of Jesus; the boredom, loneliness, worry, stress, fear, all begin to creep in, along with many other things!\u00a0 As we talked about in<\/span> Tuesday and Wednesday\u2019s blogs, we have to keep our eyes focused on JESUS at all times, or we will fall into temptation!<\/p>\n Now that we have identified the triggers<\/span>, let\u2019s talk about HOW to get out of temptation.\u00a0 We\u2019ve already indentified<\/span> one way: Keep our eyes focused on JESUS.\u00a0 We are guaranteed a way out of temptation if we keep our eyes on Jesus.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at 1 Corinthians 10:13, and see what God promises us here:<\/p>\n \u201cNo temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n First we see that there is NO temptation that is able to take us over.\u00a0 Why? Because God promises that He will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t say we would never be tempted, or that we would never have fleshly desires, but He did say that He would provide a way out of these temptations when they did come!\u00a0 Praise God!!\u00a0 That is a promise that God has made to us!\u00a0 Amen!<\/p>\n So the first thing we need to do is ASK the Lord for a way out of this temptation.\u00a0 Asking means we need to communicate our weakness (John 15:5) to Him first, and then ask (2 Timothy 2:22) for His help.\u00a0 Then since we already know that we are unable to get away from this temptation in our own power, we need to depend on GOD and His power!\u00a0 Our flesh is weak!\u00a0 But God is able to do anything, even the things that we think are simply impossible!<\/p>\n His way is always the best escape, or exit door, we can find!!\u00a0 John 10:9:\u00a0 \u201cI am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved\u2026\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 God will rescue us, if we trust Him!\u00a0 (2 Peter 2:9)<\/p>\n We also need to remember that we cannot do this in our own strength! \u00a0Our flesh will always fail! \u00a0(Colossians 2:21-23) It is only inHis<\/span> strength that we are able to do ALL things!<\/p>\n Escaping temptation is our duty as a Christian.\u00a0 We have to start by identifying the \u201cwhat,\u201d followed by the \u201cwhy,\u201d then proceeding with the \u201chow.\u201d\u00a0 We have to trust that God will always provide a way out of our temptation\u2026<\/span>no matter what it is, and no matter how strong it is! \u00a0We need to keep our eyes focused on Him.\u00a0 Cling to Him.\u00a0 Surrender to Him.\u00a0 Run to Him.\u00a0 Never trust the flesh.\u00a0 Always trust the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n This concludes my series on \u201cI AM Free to Run.\u201d\u00a0 I hope you have enjoyed it.\u00a0 I hope you were able to gain something from this series.<\/p>\n My prayer for you is that you will always seek God, in the good times and bad; in the easy times and tough!\u00a0 He is always there for you, no matter what your circumstances are, or how big they are!<\/p>\n Always remember, there is NOTHING impossible for God!<\/p>\n Always In His Love,<\/p>\n Christi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So far, in this mini-series, we\u2019ve talked about falling into temptation; worshipping idols; and what things in our life is taking precedence over the priority list.\u00a0 Today, I want to talk about how to get back on track when we have fallen into the temptation of worshipping the idols in our lives, and allowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[2838,2841,2839,209,2867,2842,2835,2845,2843,2844,425,2834,2826,554,2840,1459,2833,2837,2836,2827],"class_list":["post-12856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-womens","tag-1-corinthians-101-13","tag-2-peter-29","tag-2-timothy-222","tag-christi-wilson","tag-colossians-2-21-23","tag-colossians-221-23","tag-fleshly-desires","tag-galatians-33","tag-galatians-513","tag-galatians-519","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-i-am-free-to-run","tag-idols","tag-jesus","tag-john-109","tag-john-155","tag-luke-137","tag-matthew-1428-30","tag-safe-families-for-children","tag-temptations","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/The-Lord-Is.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-3lm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12856"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12878,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856\/revisions\/12878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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