Welcome to overcoming temptations. My prayer is that God will give you the grace and wisdom to overcome temptations in Jesus name. Our topic for today is titled “Find the Root Cause”.
It is a popular saying that if you want to completely cut down a tree you must cut it from its roots, otherwise it will grow again. So if you want solve a problem you need to identify the root cause, otherwise that problem will resurface. If someone has fever and a doctor prescribes malaria drugs without a test and meanwhile you have another sickness, the malaria drugs will never work because the root cause has not yet been identified. If people are involved in corruption like our society and you make many rules and regulation without enforcing them, that will not solve the problem because the root cause of was not addressed. If your car is overheating and your mechanic has asked you to change your radiator, change you plugs, pistons, and so on if the root cause is only one small sensor, then you would have wasted money without any results unless you identify it. If your boss at work hates you, yet you have done your best, you work hard, you come early to work, your respect him and so on, if you don’t know the root cause of the problem you will not be able to solve it, the root cause may be that the ladies he likes prefer you to him, as trivial or petty this reason may be, it could be the cause of all your problems.
So the idea is that without finding the root cause of a problem you cannot solve it, and even if you temporarily solve it, it will come back. But if the cause of a problem is identified, then it is already half solved.
The bibles says in Psalms 11:3, If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?” The answer is that the righteous cannot do anything, because if you start building a house on weak blocks but later use the best blocks to complete it, that house will fall because the foundation is faulty. So unless a matter is addressed from its foundations, it cannot be fully solved.
A lot of people today struggle with so many problems, like sickness, poverty, unemployment, unhappiness, bitterness and so on. Without really asking, what is the root cause of my problem, yet there are many physical reasons, but what is the spiritual reason. 1 Corinthians 6:18 says Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body , but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. So sin of any kind and especially fornication is the root cause of many sorrows that people face. But unfortunately many people do not want to face this fact. Proverbs 6:32 says, He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself. So if you are a man and you are sleeping with a woman that is not your wife, whether she is your girl friend or whatever, please realize that you are destroying yourself and that you have no sense, this is not my opinion it is what the bible says. You may think that you are getting away with it because you are very smart, but that is only an illusion and deception of the Enemy. The problem is that you are not able to correlate your problems with your sexual sins. You may not realize that problems with your children, job or health are all tied spiritually to your sexual sins, but in your mind you think you are handling the situation very well.
If you are a woman and you are sleeping with any man who is not your husband, be it your boss, boy friend or whatever, then you are disgraceful. Your body is the temple of God, why are you defiling it. You may think that you are very smart and that you can offer men sex to get what you want like promotion, money or favour, but realize that those problems that you face where all created by you, if you were not involved in immorality, those problems would not have existed in the first place.
God does not ask us to do something that we cannot do, if it was not possible to overcome sexual immorality, then God would not have requested it. Agreed it could be challenging, but the secret is that you need to depend on God’s grace and not your own strength. If you ask him for help in prayers he will surely help you.
Always try to identify the root cause of any problem you face and have a blessed day in Jesus name.