Listening to the radio the other day, I heard a story about how to treat a snake bite. The number one thing NOT to do is put a tourniquet on it. If you isolate the poison by cutting off the blood flow to the area with the bite, you will probably cause more damage than the snake alone could ever cause.
When we are spiritually bitten, poisoned by the lies of the enemy, it is also crucial NOT to put a tourniquet on the area of the bite. In the spirit realm, placing a tourniquet above the area of the bite happens when we justify our choice to believe the lie of the enemy. This is the process: we tell ourselves that it’s okay to do something we know to be wrong. We find a reason that suits our personality and mind, usually something that is commonly accepted by the world, to convince ourselves that we can get away with doing that which we know to be wrong. We excuse doing what we know to be wrong by accepting some lie that makes it okay for us.
In my life, the area that I have most clearly applied a tourniquet to is my choice to overeat. I know that when I overeat, I not only make myself miserable–feeling stuffed, a little nauseous, sluggish, and weak–I also dull my ability to hear God speaking into my life. I can’t see others’ needs when my focus is the obsession to eat more food, regardless of whether I’m physically hungry or not. It is a way of escaping from my responsibility to take care of this marvelous body and life God has given me and from my responsibility to love others as I love myself. It is a way to pervert God’s gift of enjoying good food, which God created to give me energy and support good health. It turns God’s blessing into a curse.
By justifying overeating, which I have known for decades to be wrong for me, I have applied a tourniquet to this area of my life. I have used every justification out there to absolve myself from doing what I know to be right, with the main justification being–just this once can’t hurt. Of course, “once” every couple of hours over several decades is no longer just once but an ingrained pattern of self-abuse that has resulted in bursitis, high blood pressure, acid reflux, lack of energy, and having to buy bigger and bigger clothes every year.
But even worse than the physical problems is the spiritual atrophy. I will never know what God intended to reveal to me in those moments, day in, day out, for over 30 years, when I chose to do what I knew to be wrong, eating more than enough to satisfy physical hunger. I can clearly see now that by applying the tourniquet of justification to this area of my life, I cut off the flow of Jesus’ blood, causing great damage to what He wanted to accomplsh through my life.
But God is so much greater than my sin that even now, at 61 years of age, He can and will deliver me and cause His life-giving blood to flow into the area of my spirit that I almost killed by my disobedience. My part is to ask Him for forgiveness, which I do, right now, and to repent sincerely, from my heart, so that He can then show me how to turn away from doing wrong and begin doing right. I pray for His guidance to show me how to remove the tourniquet of justification by making choices I know to be right and good in His sight. All for His glory so that everyone I meet will know His goodness and grace.
Amen and men.
So You Will Know 