Boy, temptation sure is rough. But the victory has been won. Pray God that I might never forget that fact. There's a quote somewhere by John Piper that runs along the lines of, "We should be glad our hope in salvation lies not in our deeds or faith, but in God's unwavering pursuit to magnify His glory." By no means is it verbatim, but the point is made clear.
My heart/head (because the two are so oft indistinguishable, for me) is now telling me: Persevere, not to resist sin and not so that I can feel good about myself; but persevere so that God might be glorified through it. And goodness gracious is it difficult.
Another wise man once said:
"No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness - they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist." - C.S. Lewis
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15
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