¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

Romans 6:12-13 [NKJV]

Continuing with our discussion/reflection of yesterday’s daily bread entry of moving away from our former sinful nature, I want to continue my daily reflection on that. But not just that, today, it appears God also wants me to be reminded that our lives (our talents/skills) can be either used for doing good, or bad things. For every single one of us, we have this choice. We can either choose to be of service (to add value) to others, or we can use it in a way that might cause harm to others. I ofcourse believe that we need to be of service whenever possible. We ought to always look to do good, adding value whenever we find ourselves to be.

Continued Reflection on Sin and Resisting Temptations

But let’s step back a little and just finish our discussion on leaving that old sinful nature of our lives behind. I love how the study notes puts it. It has provided us with 6 really simple steps that we can follow:

1. Identify our personal weaknesses.
2. Recognize the things that tempt us.
3. Stay away from source of temptation.
4. Practice self-restraint.
5. Consciously invest our time in good habits and service.
6. Lean on God’s strength and grace.

For example, I know that I am always tempted when it comes to the latest tech gadgets. It has one single greatest achilles heel since I can ever remember. Though I have become much stronger and better at resisting those temptations today, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. I think if I put myself in the vicinity of those gadgets long enough, the temptation will also keep building up to a point where I simply feel too weak to resist it. So, how do I build resistance for example? One way I thought of is to occasionally visit those stores and allow myself to experience the temptations/urges, but not let it become too overwhelming, and then I would walk away from it again. I would wait for a few days when the temptation/urges have gone away, and then I would visit that same store again, and the process would repeat.

I have tried the whole avoidance thing. So let me tell you something about that method of resisting temptations actually don’t work very well. It might work for a brief period of time. But the next time I feel tempted, the urges will become too much and overwhelming, and that is when I wouldn’t be able to resist the urges and end up giving in to it. So far, I think my current methods of resisting those temptations and urges appear to be working. I have also been practicing other things in my life like resorting to a rather extreme, but very helpful cash-nets spending lifestyle. I basically rely on using cash for 90% of my daily needs/expenses. I would withdraw my cash from the ATM when I need money. As convenient as it might be to go cashless, I still prefer paying most things using cash because it helps me to see everything more clearly. I know where I am spending my money and how much is going out. Today, I am also doing my best to be consistent with my own financial spending/monitoring, like using an Excel sheet to track my daily outgoing (spending). So far, I’m only one-month of salary into my new job, so it’s still too early to say if I am doing well at this. I hope to come back and review my progress in six months and even one year later I hope that I will have enough data and track record by then to see if I have been successful (or if I need to make adjustments to do better).

Turning Our Lives into Instruments for Good

As we begin to manage our lives and building up that resistance against our temptations and urges, the next step for us to take is to start looking at the different areas of our lives. Every single one of us has a set of unique talents and abilities. At the end of the day, we are either not using it (wasted potential), or we are using it for doing bad things (those that have committed crimes, or cause harm, spreading hate towards others), or we are using it to be of service and adding-value to others. While, I like to think that I’ve generally been a good person, I know that there had been times in my life where instead of putting my talents and abilities to good, I have instead tried to hide it/suppress it. This reminded me of the servant that was given two talents in the Parable of the Talents. Instead of investing it, they decided to hide it. And in the very end, everyone else was able to get a return on investment. But for this one servant, he didn’t gain anything in return. In much the same way, I had done that for a period of time in my life.

Whatever set of skills and talents you have today, the question you have to ask yourself is this, “Am I hiding it from the world?”, “Am I allowing God to use my talents/skills to be of service to others?”

None of us knows for sure how God intends to use us for the glory of His Kingdom. None of us can truly understand His plan and purpose for our lives. But one thing we do know is that He has blessed us with these talents/skills for a good reason. And we need to surrender those talents and skills to God.

Personal Prayer for Today

Dear Heavenly Father,

I am sorry for being somewhat distracted this morning. I saw the news and I just got sucked into it and so I only managed to begin this daily bread reflection at around 11 am. Now that I am trying to bring my focus back onto You, I thank You for continuing to speak to me through the bible. Thank you for reminding me of the steps/lessons that I can continue to take when it comes to my efforts to build that resistance against my own sins, temptations and urges. I know that no matter what, I will always need to rely upon you. I cannot do everything by myself. My strength will always be limited no matter how hard I try.

Thank You for also speaking to me today about how I need to surrender my talents and skills to You. All of them. Thank You for blessing me with these talents and skills. Thank You for blessing me with the unique set of circumstances in my life that has shaped my talents in a unique/different way. And today, as I come before You, I pray and ask that You will bless me. I ask that You will anoint those talents and skills, and continue to use them (and me) to do good work. At the end of the day God, it is all to give You the glory. This is never about me. This will never be about me. And I am okay with that.

I vow to give You all of the praise and all the glory. In Jesus’ mighty name, I pray.

Amen.