Gazing, Longing and Tasting

Gazing leads to longing, and longing to tasting, and tasting to more tasting. I heard this saying on a commercial over the radio for Carabba's one day and thought, "Wow, this guy is really onto something." No, I did not have a sudden urge to turn around and find a great meal of Italian cuisine, or a desperate need to travel to the Sicilian beach front, but a taste of hatred of sin in my mouth. How often and how easy it is to venture down the wrong path. Ken has often quoted this and it has really changed my outlook on the way that I view many things: "What we tolerate today will become acceptable tomorrow."
I have been searching for scriptures that deal with this, and have found that they are too plentiful to begin to put them all in here. Almost all of the Old Testament is a message to Israel to turn from their sin and worship their God and keep his Sabbath and Laws. One case that I think is particularly applicable is the story of David. For those of you who came to VBS last year, you may remember Steve J. teaching our class a couple of days. One of his lessons was concerning David, and how the situation with Bathsheba was not a one-time shortfall, but the natural progression of a series of sins. David had been committing several "small," less notable, sins all throughout his time as king. This situation caused his protective wall of spiritual discernment to be down, until eventually he was in position for a great fall. He saw Bathsheba (While his men were at war and he was not), wanted her, took her, found out she was with child, and arranged for her husband to be killed after Uriah (her husband) was unwilling to sleep with his wife (because of his devotion to David and Israel's army). You see an obvious pattern of gazing, longing, tasting, and more tasting.
As followers of the Lord, we need to be mindful what we allow to come into our lives. While we are on the internet; while we are listening to the radio; while we are watching tv; while we are reading magazines. Everything that comes into our mind influences us in some way. Even if there is not an immediate sin or action, it will do one of two things: tear us down or build us up. Christ has bought us with a great price: His Life. It is no longer us who lives, but Christ who lives in us. We have died to ourselves. In Luke 9, Christ asks us what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet forfeits his soul? Jim Elliot once said "He is no fool to give up what he could never keep, to gain what he could never earn.
Colossions 3 gives us several lists of things to put us on a path to putting on righteousness. Not for our own sake, but to glorify Christ. There are two lists of actions and characteristics that we should not associate ourselves with, and we are instructed to put off these things (Col 3:5-11). But in Col 3:12-17 we are given the characteristics of the "New Man" that we are in Christ, and are instructed to let love be our bond and to let the Peace of God rule in our hearts.
If in fact, we do these things, and seek the kingdom of God, and make intentional efforts to be in His word and be in fellowship with one another, we will be successful in fighting off our sinful nature and avoid the great fall that so many Christians find themselves in. This is not to say that we will not sin, but we will be in a better position to pull ourselves up after one sin and not allow our appetite for sin to consume us. Grace and peace, hope everyone is having a great week. -Bubba