Samson went too far. He wound up with his eyes gouged out, mocked by his captors in a Philistine dungeon. Why? Because of two unguarded areas: pride and sex. <\/p>\n
David also struggled against temptation. In a moment of weakness he fell prey to lust and paid dearly. But he didn't die in prison like Samson. Instead he died as \u2018a man after God's own heart.\u2019 What made the difference?<\/p>\n
Repentance! <\/p>\n
In brokenness and humility David called on the Lord and found mercy and grace to get back up. Stop and ask yourself, \u2018Am I living a secret life that only God and I know about? Have I allowed myself to become so addicted to my sin that I fear there\u2019s no possibility of turning back?\u2019<\/p>\n
It\u2019s never too late to start doing what\u2019s right. You cannot sink so deep that Christ is unable to lift you. Repentance is the place to start. Repentance means turning from your sin, confessing your failure and acknowledging your inability to change on your own. It means asking for God\u2019s strength. Stop rationalising what you\u2019re doing; you\u2019re only fooling yourself. You may have kept it a secret so far, but ultimately you\u2019ll be found out. Don\u2019t go another day without falling on your knees before God and praying, \u2018Cleanse me from my sin. Create in me a pure heart, O God.\u2019<\/i> (Psalm 51:2;10 NIV) <\/p>\n
Did you pray that prayer? If so, reach for those who can strengthen and encourage you. Don\u2019t try to battle it alone; you won\u2019t succeed. Then what? Get back in the race and run like never before!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Samson went too far. He wound up with his eyes gouged out, mocked by his captors in a Philistine dungeon. Why? Because of two unguarded areas: pride and sex. David also struggled against temptation. In a moment of weakness he fell prey to lust and paid dearly. But he didn't die in prison like Samson. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}