DON'T ANSWER THE DOOR

Hadley Baker

My early teenage years were a rough patch for me, spiritually speaking.  Although I was in church constantly (Sunday mornings, Sundays nights, and Wednesday nights) I was as lost as a blind man with dyslexia in a maze.  Church for me was social time and nothing more.  But that all changed the summer before I entered high school.  I had a life-changing (and destiny altering) encounter with the God of the universe.  Jesus performed a heart transplant on me.  In one grace-filled collision, He rendered me helplessly in love with Him.  The “old” me died that day and I was born again (see John 3:3). 

It just so happened that only a few months before my conversion my family had moved from Wichita Falls to a neighboring small town called Holliday.  While I was only about fifteen miles away from my old stomping ground, I was light years away in terms of the social scene.  I was starting fresh at Holliday High School.  I was the new kid on campus.  All of my “old” friends were at a different school—and this was a good thing.  I didn’t need to be running with that crowd any more.  Those people were an anchor to me spiritually, weighing me down and holding me back.  So while switching schools was challenging and uncomfortable in some ways, it gave me a chance to hit the reset button on my friendships.  I had a clean slate, a blank canvas.  With my faith in Christ being my new and most important priority, I was determined to surround myself with other believers.  God honored my desire and placed some incredible Christian young men in my life, many of whom are still close friends to this day.

But one fall Friday night the “old life” came knocking at my door.  One of my friends from the old crowd invited me to go with him to a football game and then come stay the night.  I was a little nervous at first, but I quickly dismissed it.  My suspicions were instantly confirmed.  Immediately after the game I found myself at a party.  Everyone was drinking up, smoking up, hooking up.  I was feeling so strange in that moment.  Only a year before that I would have loved being at that party.  But it was different now.  I was different.  The world I once loved now felt foreign to me.  I remember sitting on a couch in the living room and thinking to myself, “I don’t belong here.  This isn’t me anymore.” 

Do you ever hear the past knocking at your heart’s door?  Do the old friends, old places, old habits still call your name?  Let’s be honest—this will always be the case.  The devil knows where you are weak, where you are “temptable.”  He knows the areas where you struggle to stand strong.  So this is where wisdom has to kick in.  We have to exercise some good ole’ common sense: stay away from places and people that will cause you to compromise.  That’s it, plain and simple.  When temptation knocks, don’t answer the door.  Just say, “Jesus, will you get that for me?”

Today I hope you will take just a few minutes to read a story about a young man who is being tempted BIG TIME to hook up with a woman whose husband is out of town.  Will he make the right choice?

Go read PROVERBS 7 and find out.