Why does temptation seem so compulsive?

How can sin become so addictive?

How do I battle this God-awful scourge?

It’s something I just can’t seem to purge!

 

My Spirit will expose your inner corruption

That drives you, beneath your outward compulsions.

If your highest purpose is to feel better,

That corruption will lock you up in fetters.

 

That vague feeling of dull incompleteness,

Driven by strident demands for fullness,

Will grow into an insatiable urge,

Through which you will justify every splurge.

 

If you seek satisfaction as your highest goal,

Your “self” will turn inward to feel more “whole,”

Your power to love no matter how you feel

Will be lost until you find the “latest” appeal.

 

“How can You expect me to care for another,

Until I love myself? My self-care’s not over!”

No! Your obsession with “loving” yourself?

Use that same care, for others, in giving yourself!

 

The “self,” demanding satisfaction,

The “self,” experiencing satisfaction

Will lead you to the life of Mick Jagger

“I can’t get no, … no, no, no … satisfaction!”

 

On one hand, don’t be ruled by your desires,

And just throw off what God requires.

On the other hand, just following “the rules,”

Can turn you into relational fools.

 

Depend on My Spirit to love like I do,

A new joy you will find, nothing else will do!

My Spirit will sprout love, joy and goodness,

Peace, patience, self-control and gentleness.

 

-Seth