Has a good thing become an idol on this edition of Truth and Love?

I'm Heath Lambert and you're listening to Truth and Love, a podcast of the Association

of Certified Biblical Counselors, where we seek to provide biblical solutions for the

problems that people face. This week on the podcast, we are talking about how to know whether a good

thing has become a problem in our life. This is a fascinating discussion because the reality that good

things can become a problem, can become a difficulty for us

is a key part of understanding the doctrine of human sinfulness.

Our sin is so bad and is bad to such an extent that it even distorts good things.

There is a text of scripture that helps us to think about this. It's James chapter 1, and starting in verse 13, it says, let no one say when he's tempted,

I'm being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone.

But each one is tempted when he is carried away and

enticed by his own lust. And then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is

accomplished, it brings forth death. Now, this is a fascinating text because of that word lust.

There in verse 14. Different translations will

translate that word differently, but the word there is the Greek word that's just a neutral

word for desire. When that neutral word for desire is translated lust, that is indicating that there's something bad going on with that

desire. That is a sound exegetical decision because the development of that desire, translated in

my version here, lust, leads to death. When lust, verse 15, conceives it gives birth to sin. When sin is

accomplished, it brings forth death. So there's a chain of lust leading to sin, leading to death.

And so we know that even though the word for desire there is neutral, it's actually representing

something bad. Our desires can be good or bad.

When they are bad, they can be off in two different ways. Our desires can be off in direction when we

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