Category: Hope

I picked my friend up from Heathrow after a preaching trip to the U.S. and noticed a HUGE golden ring on his finger (about the size of a small fridge). “How on earth did you get that?” I asked.

He told me. He’d been invited to lead worship at a particular pastor’s church. Mid‑service, though caught up in the music, he felt the Holy Spirit urging him to stop and listen. At first, it was a whisper; then it became a clear, booming word: “Tell the pastor that if he doesn’t stop his affair with the lady on the keyboard, I will take him home.”

Sensual temptation promises pleasure, but its real aim is to steal our hunger for God. It takes good gifts—food, touch, beauty, rest—and turns them into ends in themselves, training the body to crave more while the soul grows hungry. The tempter uses novelty, secrecy, and quick thrills to pull us from abiding in Christ, knowing that repeated indulgence dulls conviction, harms intimacy with God, and leaves a restless emptiness only He can fill.