thoughts and sin, given roost or not

sitting here working today, this morning, when here comes a sin-thought trying to roost in my mind. It didn't want to go away, but surrendering my mind to the Lord overcame.

Then I keep working in the afternoon, and this stupid sin-thought comes back. Stronger this time. It roosted longer the second time. Not sure if it was because it was a stronger second attack or if it was my letting it roost longer than I should have.

Whichever of those was true, the Lord came through. The deliverance seemed a combination of his deliverance combined with my will/action to resist.

It had been me who was letting the sin roost longer the second time. It was up to me to do my part in shoo-ing that thought from my mind. God can deliver, but with some sin-thoughts there is also our action required also, to resist.

As I type this, the verse about "resist the devil" comes to mind. Looked it up here, the verse is actually twofold: Submit to God AND resist the devil. "Submit (be subject) to God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him], and he will flee from you." (James 4:7, Amplified Bible)

There might be a tendency with temptations to think that it's totally up to God to deliver us, to save us. Well, God will do His part, but there's an our part/our action to it happening too.

I have been finding this to be true. I am to participate in helping repel the sin, whether it be my own mind/flesh or a suggestion from the enemy. It was refreshed to my mind today how sly and innocent he makes his suggestions. He portrays sin as harmless or attractive, or both.

Remember this, too. As we grow in Christ, satan knows he can't blurt out easily discernable thoughts to our mind. He has to become more cunnnig and sly in his suggestions to us, appearing as an angel of Light. (2 Corinthians 11:14, Psalm 119:125, Proverbs 14:6, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Philippians 1:9-10)

The best analogy I have ever heard about sin and bad thoughts is:

If a bird comes and lands on your head, you can either shoo it away...or let it build a nest. It's our choice what to do when that bird lands unannounced on our head.

This is the same as sin. Yes, we're going to have thoughts from our own flesh and sly, harmless-seeming suggestions from he who hates us and wants to steal, kill and destroy. We decide either to shoo away, or let those thoughts/sins roost in our minds--toward becoming sinful actions.

As part of our growing in faith in Jesus, we still (and will always) have our flesh which will contend for the throne of our lives. We will always have our flesh to fight with, as long as we are here.

Even when I get up every morning and tell Jesus "I die to myself, and will live today for You", by the mere fact of being a human I will have multiple, tens or sometimes even hundreds of situations arise each day in my thoughts and actions to live according to my flesh or live according to the Holy Spirit.

Will we be held accountable before the Lord for the sinful entering our mind? Or will we be held accountable for shooing or not shooing away those thoughts which come to us and do or don't measure up with Scripture and/or our hearts (conscience) of the Holy Spirit? (Romans 8:1-17)

We will also have the slimy sleazeball dork enemy satan, doing what he does in rationalizing sin and making sin appear harmless to us.

We decide whether to allow either of these two things to come to fruition, whether our flesh or an attack to suggest and justify sin. We decide whether either of these two are shooed away...or given roost in our minds without being shooed away. This, friend, is the breeding ground for sin.

When the breeding ground for sin is from our flesh, we are to crucify our own fleshly desires (John 6:63, Romans 8:13, Colossians 3:5).

When the breeding ground is harmless-sounding, lying suggestions from the enemy, we are told "submit to God and resist the devil and he will flee" (James 4:7).

Honestly, Scripture here, in very simple terms, reveals the what and how of overcoming sin. It's not the big, huge thing we make it out to be. It's very simple.

But boy, don't we so frequently rationalize, justify and (let's be honest) esteem sin? Give it power it does not have? The Word very simply says how to deal with it. But don't we make it bigger than it is, regularly?

There are two aspects to overcoming sin. One is the charge above: put the desires of the flesh to death. Die to ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Jesus (Luke 9:23-24). This is the one we are more familiar with. This is the one we can relate to Paul so well, in terms of battling sin in Romans 7.

I am not a Bible scholar, so this is a conclusion which I have no shame in admitting could easily be wrong, but from the way Paul writes in Romans 7 it appears this is early on in His walk with Jesus. This battle, this struggle against the flesh. Doing what he doesn't want to do, and not doing what he wants to do--in terms of living by the flesh versus living by Jesus.