Satan as an instrument of God

"... God uses our conflict with Satan to develop character. These struggles give us the opportunity of having our faith tested. Our spiritual war is a classroom where we can learn about the deceitfulness of sin and the chastisement of God-- along with His grace and power. God could have banished Satan to another planet or cast him immediately into the lake of fire. But He chose to use the devil, to give him a role to play in the divine drama. God knows that we must fight before we can celebrate. We must learn before we are appoved."

Erwin W. Lutzer
The Serpent of Paradise, p. 21

A Christian Neuroscientist Explains How Pornography Perverts A Man's Interactions With Women

"As men fall deeper into the mental habit of fixating on these images, the exposure to them creates neural pathways. Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time these neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. They become the automatic pathway through which interactions with women are routed. The neural circuitry anchors this process solidly in the brain. With each lingering stare, pornography deepens the Grand Canyon-like gorge in the brain through with images of women are destined to flow. This extends to women that they have not seen naked or engaging in sexual acts as well. All women become potential porn stars in the minds of these men. They have unknowingly created a neurological circuit that imprisons their ability to see women rightly as created in God's image."

Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain
William M. Struthers
page 85, (IVP Books, 2009)

"When I run, I feel His pleasure"

In the film Chariots of Fire there is a memorable scene involving Eric Liddell and his sister, Jenny. She is chiding him for what she regards as his divided loyalty between his athletics and his commitment to Christ. She reminds him that God made him for Himself. He replies: 

“Aye, Jenny, I know, but He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

For us, this may not be athletics. It may be accounting or selling or teaching or nursing or mothering. In the latter case, this would allow a mother to declare with conviction:  “And when I make the lunches, I feel His pleasure.”

Alistair Begg
Made For His Pleasure, pages xviii - xix
(Moody Press)

Sin as a Hindrance to Understanding God's Word (Wayne Grudem)

WAYNE GRUDEM

Paul implies that the moral and spiritual immaturity of the Corinthian church prevented him from imparting deeper wisdom to them (“solid food” and not “milk” 1 Cor. 3:1-3).

The practical implication of this qualification is that Christians who begin to practice willful, repeated sin (and even—or especially—pastors and scholars who begin to practice willful, repeated sin!) will likely soon begin to lose sound judgment in interpretation and will become less and less able to understand Scripture rightly.

Themelios, November 2009