The Truth Of God For a Lie: Untamed Passions

I was recently listening to a podcast by Ravi Zacharias called "Character Counts". The basic idea was to go through the last three leaders of the old testament and discovery what choices they had made that lead the country to division. Ravi brought up an interesting point in the middle of his sermon... he pointed out how ridiculously talented and gifted these rulers were. Each in their own way had been blessed and gifted. And yet even with such great wisdom, power, blessings, each failed. Why? How could a man with the gift of wisdom marry hundreds of women and take absurd concubines? Why would he condone slave labor in order to build monuments to his own vanity? Then Ravi hit a nerve.

The reason these men failed were their untamed passions. Wow. Our untamed and unchecked passions, which are given to us by God if left unchallenged and unchecked can destroy us. Thats crazy. It doesn't matter how gifted we can be... it doesn't matter what anointing God puts on our life, if we allow our passions to overtake us, if we don't tame them... they will overwhelm us. How terrifying that thought is. Men specifically struggle with their untamed passions, and what a struggle that is. We're left handicapped. How unfair. I suppose it make since then why God didn't give Adam Eve right out of the gate. He had to get his stupidity under control. How that could have destroyed their relationship.... Yet God gave us our passions, didn't He? So that makes me wonder, how powerful can a man be who can control his passions? A man with vision is a dangerous thing, a passionate man with vision is an unstoppable force.

Imagine a man who has tamed his passions. Would that not make him a better husband? Wouldn't that make him an amazing one? What would he not give for his better half? The world? His life? I doubt there is anything on earth that could stop a man like that... but it goes beyond that.

What about passionate servants? Leaders? The two come hand in hand... maybe thats why some of the most twisted people to ever walk the earth believed they were helping the world, leading it into a brighter future. Men who are after money... power... they don't last long. Their passions, their lusts, often bring them low long before they are able to do much. But leaders... servants... who believe they are doing whats right... how dangerous they are when they have not tamed their passions.

It brings to mind this verse...
   
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
[Romans 1:25]

Isn't that interesting... don't we do the same things when we leave our passions untamed? When our car becomes more important than our God? When our wife does? When our house does? When our career does? Do we daily exchange the TRUTH for a LIE? How terrifying to me that is... does my passion to see an amazing department in my church grow outweigh my passion for God? Saul's passion for people lead him to spare the life of a man God told him to kill. He chose man over God. It cost him his throne.

God, I pray you bring this verse to my memory whenever my passions begin to overwhelm me. I pray I am reminded that my zealous and stubborn heart needs awakened each morning by the sobering idea that my desires, though not inherently bad, must be checked. That I must hold captive my thoughts. That Christ is the only solution. That I need Him.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
[Romans 1:26-31]