When you fall into
temptation, it’s not easy to get away from it. When you receive grace and are
filled with the Holy Spirit, you live a life of faith with thanks. However,
when you fall into temptation, complaints and negative thoughts reside in your
mind without knowing. You think that it will be okay even though you don’t attend
services on Wednesdays and Fridays because there are many people who go to
church only on Sundays. Besides, you are mean to dedicate your offering to
God while grudging money. If you take the negative thoughts, before realize, you
start to speak ill of church and leave. You consider that a foolish act, which
rationalizes your own acts, is right while you don’t find your spiritual
present address. Although you are full of production of ruin, if you don’t find
them, it will be irrevocable. When you realize that you will die, you can turn
away from it. While your faith is rotting and your soul is being destroyed, if you
don’t find your problem or admit the problem and solve the problem, you can’t
turn away from the path of destruction. The worst enemy of life of faith is
grumble, discontent, resentment, tiredness and indifference. We should never
allow the physical desire. It is much easier for you not to go to church next
time after you not attending or forgot to pray while you were having fun
watching TV. A person who been tempted once thinks their thoughts are
right even though others urge them with right words. When you get a phone call
to come to church, there’s a foolish person who says they can’t go feeling that
they were interfering without realizing that the Lord urges you through people.
Once you begin to allow the physical desire, it’s difficult for you to be
restored. Therefore, you should never be shaken in your faith life but keep
praying continually in words of God in order to be full of the Holy Spirit.
Seok-Jeon Yoon
Extracted from Yonsei Newspaper #452 (September 19, 2015)