Summer is in full swing, the sun is hot, the pool is cool and our hopes are high. The end of school always brings anticipation, bucket lists and hopes for memories of a lifetime. Vacations, popsicles, boats, beaches, barbecues, air conditioning and lemonade fill up summer. Usually not even 2 days in the temptation creeps in. In addition to the joy, celebration and relaxing, it is not uncommon for summertime to make provision for temptation to creep into our lives in many ways. Things like the temptation to be lazy and sleep in every morning, to be slothful and lounge around all day or sometimes to sneak out of our homes, wear immodest clothing, spend too much alone time with a certain guy, or loosen our language. Yes, all of these temptations rear their head at inopportune moments and sometimes pop up out of nowhere.
While we should not make provision for any sin in our life, during summer we must be on guard and protect our hearts. The list of temptations above might just be scratching the surface but the desire for any of those things is rooted in discontentment in the Lord. Sin is tempting to us because we don’t believe that Jesus is who He says He is and will do the work that He says He will do. Everyday we need to remind our hearts and reset our mind to focus on Christ.
Instead of filling your bucket list with the number of roller coaster rides, movies watched and dollars spent focus your mind on things above. Set goals that feed your heart and are eternally focused. Find an older lady to mentor you, read a Christian book with your friends, memorize a chapter of a book in the bible, or build relationships with family members. Do not allow sin to reign and trick you into its trap in the summer months.
While the summer heat brings many things don’t let it tempt you to fall into bad habits. Use this time over the summer to look for opportunities to prepare your heart and grow your faith. Now is a great time to strengthen your soul and refine your convictions before you return to school and the busyness of fall.
How do you spend your time over the summer? Have you set any goals or set out to so some specific things? What are you looking forward to in the coming weeks?
This statement really resonated with me, “Sin is tempting to us because we don’t believe that Jesus is who He says He is and will do the work that He says He will do. ” I think that you are spot on when you say that we don’t believe that Jesus is who He says He is. He is the almighty God, and His word will not come back void. As the proverbs say, Fear of the Lord is the begining of wisdom. I think knowing exactly who God is can help us make even better decisions about our life choices including summer, winter, spring or fall. With that said, my commitment to honor this blog is:
Objective: to learn the “names of Jesus” and pray and ponder then the rest of this year. One name a day is perfect. I will use the book Praying the Names of Jesus A Daily Guide by Ann Spangler
Priority: How badly do I want it? What price am I willing to pay? I want it badly as I truly want to experience the joy of knowing who Jesus is and how I can have a personal relationship with him. Fortunately for us, He has given us His names so that we can have that.
Schedule: I am willing to commjit that I will do this every day. It will probably be part of a lunch time thing or after work is over. Just 15 minutes a day. I can surely do that!
Discipline: Ultimately this is the fruit of the Spirit. I know that I fear I “don’t have the time”, but I really know that I’ve got al lthe time in the world to do what is essential. Having a relationship with Jesus is essential. I want to KNOW Him.
So Katie, you just never know how your blog can touch someone’s life. Yours today, touched mine. As I sat next to a young 18 year old on the plane from Ontario to Oakland on Monday afternoon, his comment was that He liked God but he didn’t like religion. I told him that someone 2,000 years ago basically said and agreed with him. That would be Jesus. He and I had a wonderful conversation about what it meant to have a PERSONAL relationship with Him. I do read the Word, but not as often as I should. This commitment will not only help me with reading the Word as I study Jesus’ names, it will also bring me closer to HIm. God bless you for posting this!!!