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Help for daily living
Facing temptation to do
wrong
O LORD, you have searched me and
you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from
afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar
with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it
completely, O LORD. You hem me in--behind and before; you have
laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for
me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your
presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the
depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if
I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide
me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the
darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even
the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the
day, for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's
womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully
made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My
frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw
my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in
your book before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the
sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the
grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious
thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me
in the way everlasting.
(Psalm 139:1-18, 23-24 NIV)
When tempted, no one should say,
"God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he
tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire,
he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it
gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to
death.
(James 1:13-26 NIV) |