5 Minutes a day / 5 Days a week

with God

1 Cor 13:4-7

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Week two in our daily devotional series on love, for our ninth thing we will look at concerning love, is something else that love does not do.

thinks no evil

"Now what Christian in their right mind would ever want to think of evil, especially towards their spouse or friend?"

Good question, but how many of us have at one time or another? Sure, it may not have seemed to start out like that, but didn't it grow into something horrible in your mind.

So how does this happen? Once again we will look to the Lord speaking through James to find out.

James 1:14-15 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

It all starts with a simple desire, once that desire is not met by your spouse or friend you start looking elsewhere and your desires are enticed. The word "entice" means to bait or catch with bait. It's like satan will dangle this desire in front of us until we just have to have it met, once it's not then you start to take action, which turns it now into sin.

Example: Say you see a pair of $100 shoes that you just have to have but you don't have enough money. So you ask your friend if you can borrow the money. He or she says no that they don't have that kind of money to lend you. Soon it seems you see everyone having these shoes. Every store you go to they are there, and in every magazine you pick up there they are again. You have just been enticed. But still no money and your friend refuses to lend it to you. So you start to conceive ways of getting the money for these shoes. You could rob a bank, but then you would go to jail. You could break into your kid's piggy bank and take the money. Hey, that sounds perfect, you think to yourself, so you do it. Now you go down to buy the shoes but start to feel guilty about it, so you go back home and return the money. So you decide that since you can't buy them, you can at least try them on and see what the big deal really is. So you go down to the shoe store and try them on, and you think you're now the coolest thing to walk this earth. You realize that you must have them. So you look around and make sure no one is watching, rip the tags off and put your old shoes in the box that these new ones came in, and leave your old shoes there and walk out the store. You have just sinned by stealing these shoes.

I know this sounds crazy, but then so do some of the thoughts we have.
We vow to love and be together with our spouse no matter what, but when things get tough we try and take the easy way out.
We think we need more stuff, so we get more credit cards and end up going bankrupt.
Our friend is going through a tough time and doesn't make us laugh anymore, so we just leave them there and find another who will make us laugh.

So how do we deal with these evil thoughts? The bible tells us.

2 Cor 10:5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

If your thought is against God's word, do you think He put it there or wants you to continue to think about it?
No, He wants us to compare all our thoughts against His word, and if they do not line up with His word, then forget about it because it's an evil thought.

So next time you are angry or upset with your spouse or friend, take your thoughts about the whole thing and compare them to God's word.
Does God want you to work things out no matter how tough they may be, or just walk away from your spouse or friend?
Before you answer this question, ask yourself another one first. Would you want God to hang in there with you when you are struggling or walk away from you?

Luke 10:37 And he said, "He who showed mercy on him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

E-Mail Home Page