Sin is crouching at your door and it's desire is for you.....

Tonight was the first night of a new Bible study that I am leading.  We are reading through the Bible by splitting up the New and Old Testament.  We read some of Genesis and Matthew each day and so on and so forth.  Anywho...one of the things that really hit me like a brick was Genesis 4:7.  At this point Cain and Abel had both brought offerings to the Lord...but God found favor with Abel's (because it was the first his flock...the BEST of what he had) but did not find favor with Cain's offering.  Cain was enraged, to say the least, that his offering did not find favor with God.  

"The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast." Genesis 4:4-5

In verse six God asks Cain why he is so downcast.  Then helped Cain realize that he had a choice:

"If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it's desire is for you, but you must master it." Genesis 4:7

The options are to do what is right or not do what is right.  It was Cain's choice.  The Lord also revealed the consequences of doing what was not right....he warned him that sin was awaiting him.  It desired him.  He also said that it can be mastered.

To me this is applicable to us.  I KNOW that the Lord always shows me, just like He did Cain, the choice I have before I choose to do what i know is wrong.  He often gives me a glimpse of what the consequences are.  He always reminds me that Sin waits to consume me.  It is the downfall of man.  Following the right road, and doing what the Lord advises ALWAYS leads to good...ALWAYS!  I think that if I remembered the aggressive and wicked nature of sin...that it's desire is for me, then I would run...flee...escape....catapult myself as far away from it as possible.  Yet I don't...I, at times, find myself like Lot putting my tent near the sin...and end up right smack in the middle of it.

I also realized that God has given me the ability to MASTER it.  1 Corinthians 10:13 tells me that God provides a way out of temptation. He does this through the Holy Spirit...the way out comes at the point where he says...you can choose to say this...or you can do what is right and refrain.  It is always there....but I act like I can't control it.  This thought is contrary to what this Scripture teaches us.  We do not have to let sin get what it craves (to consume us) we can stop it.  As He-man once said, "I have the powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr." Um...yeah...well, the Lord has given the power...but nonetheless...the power is ours.