A Discipleship Work by Scott Koehler
I. THE TRUTH NO ONE TOLD YOU
I have learned something about temptation I wish someone had told me years ago:
Sin doesn’t always chase you in broad daylight.
Most of the time, it follows you home.
It walks behind you quietly.
It waits for your guard to drop.
It studies your routines, your wounds, your exhaustion, your unspoken hungers.
And if you’re honest — brutally honest — you already know this.
There are sins you never committed when you were in the Word, in the Spirit, or in the fellowship of believers.
And there are sins you fell into because you were alone.
Because you were tired.
Because you were unseen.
Because you were hurting.
Because you were drifting.
Because you were hiding.
I have lived all three terrains:
losing, falling, drifting.
And if you are breathing, you are living at least one of them right now.
So hear me:
Temptation is not a moment.
It is a geography.
And if you don’t know the terrain of your own soul,
you will be ambushed on ground you thought was safe.
II. THE DROWNING — THE WOUNDED
If you are losing the battle right now — not theoretically, but in the quiet places no one can see — I need to tell you something with the clarity of a man who has drowned before:
You are not losing because you are wicked.
You are losing because you are wounded.
The devil is not defeating you with power.
He is defeating you with your silence.
With the things you won’t confess.
With the temptations you keep locked in a drawer.
With the pain you’re ashamed to name.
The drowning doesn’t happen in a single moment — it happens in a dozen small surrenders you never counted as dangerous.
It wasn’t the wave.
It was the undertow.
And Scripture gives you the picture:
“Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion,
seeking someone to devour.”
— 1 Peter 5:8
A lion doesn’t charge the strong.
It hunts the limping one.
The isolated one.
The one lagging behind.
And if you refuse to admit you’re leaving a blood trail,
you will be the one it devours.
III. THE FALLING — THE SINCERE BUT UNHONEST
There is a kind of believer I understand deeply —
the one who genuinely loves God
but keeps falling in the same place.
You’re not playing games.
You’re not pretending.
You’re not rebelling.
You’re just tired.
You want holiness.
You want obedience.
You want clean hands and a clean mind.
But something inside you keeps buckling
at the exact moment you thought you were ready to stand.
And you think your problem is discipline.
It isn’t.
Your problem is an unconfessed desire
still ruling its small corner of your heart
because you’ve never let the Spirit speak into that room.
Desire rules where honesty dies.
You fall
because you are trying to crucify the flesh
while secretly negotiating with it.
You cannot rebuke what you secretly cradle.
You cannot conquer what you refuse to drag into the Light.
Falling happens when desire is left unsupervised.
When desire stays hidden.
When desire is managed privately instead of surrendered openly.
If you keep falling into the same sin, hear this:
It is not a discipline problem —
it is an intimacy problem.
You have not let God into the room
where the sin is conceived.
IV. THE DRIFTING — THE NUMB AND UNAWARE
Drifting is the most deceptive form of temptation
because it leaves no bruises.
You’re not drowning.
You’re not falling.
You’re not visibly struggling.
You’re just… coasting.
Comfortable.
Self-assured.
Unafraid.
And that alone should terrify you.
Drifting is where holiness stops hurting.
Drifting is where the appetite for God quietly erodes.
Drifting is anesthesia.
And here is the danger:
When you drift,
you stop hearing the warning bells —
not because they stopped ringing,
but because your ears slowly closed.
Lukewarmness is not a temperature.
Lukewarmness is a slope.
A slope that never feels steep
until gravity does what it always does.
V. THE COMMON THREAD — HIDING
Whether you are drowning, falling, or drifting,
the root is always the same:
You have hidden something from God
that He has been trying to bring into the Light.
And yes —
you can be drowning in secret,
falling in secret,
and drifting in secret
even with a Bible on your lap
and worship on your lips.
I know because I have lived this double-life:
Holy on the outside.
Haunted on the inside.
Strong in public.
Starving in private.
Temptation does not defeat you when you sin.
It defeats you when you hide.
VI. EXPOSURE — THE BEGINNING OF DELIVERANCE
Exposure is humiliation — and that humiliation is holy.
It is the mortification of the flesh, the pride-killing blow the old self cannot survive.
Because pride will not repent.
Pride must be crucified.
And crucifixion is never dignified.
Sin will not walk into the Light on its own.
It must be seized, dragged, stripped of its excuses,
and thrown onto the altar.
It screams because it knows what the Light does.
Sin will not die politely.
It must be dragged — kicking, clawing, resisting — into the Light.
And the shame that burns your face in that moment is not your enemy;
it is your CROSS.
It is the hammer that nails the old self down.
It is God breaking the mask you’ve been hiding behind
and killing the pride that kept you in chains.
Every time I hid, the sin ruled me.
Every time I exposed it — trembling, humiliated, undone — its power cracked.
For sin can survive anything except the Light.
Holiness begins right there,
at the Cross,
where the flesh finally dies
and the Spirit finally reigns.
VII. THE REAL ENEMY — NEGOTIATION
Temptation rarely comes roaring with fangs out.
It comes wearing soft words:
“You’re tired.”
“No one will know.”
“Just this once.”
But this —
this
is where battles are won or lost.
Not when the sin is in front of you,
but when the conversation starts behind your ribs.
Sin does not need your agreement.
It only needs your hesitation.
Adam didn’t fall when he ate the fruit.
He fell when he listened.
And hear me:
The Light does not negotiate.
VIII. CUT IT OFF — THE NECESSARY VIOLENCE OF HOLINESS
Cut it off.
The number.
The account.
The app.
The website.
The pattern.
The secret.
The lie.
The desire.
Kill it before it kills you.
Do not negotiate.
Do not delay.
Do not soften it.
The flesh is not a pet to train.
It is a traitor to crucify.
IX. REPLACEMENT — NOT RESISTANCE
I used to think holiness meant shoving sin away with both hands.
But resistance is not transformation.
The Spirit does not merely suppress desire —
He replaces it.
“Walk by the Spirit,
and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
(Galatians 5:16)
Holiness isn’t white-knuckled resistance.
Holiness is replacement.
Holiness is affection.
Holiness is desire redirected.
Temptation loses its grip
not because you grow stronger,
but because the Spirit grows louder.
X. TODAY — NOT LATER
Some of you are thinking:
“I’ll confess tomorrow.”
“I’ll repent when I feel God again.”
“I’ll deal with it once I’m stronger.”
No, you won’t.
You won’t do it later
because the darkness will not let you do it later.
The Light is not asking you to be strong.
It is asking you to be honest.
XI. CONFESSION AS WARFARE
If you want to know the truth:
The enemy does not fear your perfection.
He fears your honesty.
The honest believer is the dangerous believer.
The honest believer breaks generational patterns.
The honest believer walks in a Light
that blinds the enemy.
The honest believer becomes a testimony
hell cannot silence.
XII. DRAW NEAR — THE INVITATION
“Draw near to God,
and He will draw near to you.”
(James 4:8)
There are no footnotes.
No performance clauses.
No hidden conditions.
Holiness is not the reward for the strong.
It is the inheritance of the surrendered.
Draw near exactly as you are —
with the sin you’re hiding,
the desire you’re afraid to name,
the weakness that keeps tripping you.
He is not asking for polish.
He is asking for honesty.
XIII. THE ENDING — LIGHT WINS
Let me end with a truth the darkness cannot counterfeit:
Light always wins.
Not sometimes.
Not eventually.
Not after you impress God.
Always.
The same Light that exposes
is the Light that restores.
The same Light that convicts
is the Light that cleanses.
The same Light that breaks your pride
is the Light that binds your wounds.
You can come home.
You can start again.
You can be free.
The darkness knows your footsteps.
But the Light knows your name.
And it is calling you.
Right now.