Pitfalls in the Path

1. PITFALL: Falling in love with the present world.
PROTECTION: Think long and hard about the deadly poison of world-love and ponder the never-ending delights of the mountain spring of God's approval and fellowship and beauty.

2. PITFALL: Loss of horror at offending the majesty of God's holiness through sin.
PROTECTION: Meditate on the Biblical truth that all our acts are acts toward God and not just toward man, and that God is so holy and pure that he will not countenace the slightest sin, but hates it with omnipotent hatred, and that the holiness of God is the most valuable treasure in the universe and the very deepest of delights to those whose way is pure.

3. PITFALL: A sense of immunity from accountability and authority.
PROTECTION: Submit yourself to a council of Biblically minded, spiritually wise advisers.

4. PITFALL: Succumbing to itching ears as love of truth evaporates.
PROTECTION: Cultivate a love for truth, even in its smallest details, and turn a deaf ear to the desires of men to have their ears scratched with vague moralisms that massage them in their sin.

5. PITFALL: A vanishing attention to Scripture.
PROTECTION: Give yourself untiringly to the study, meditation and memorization of Holy Scripture.

6. PITFALL: A growing disregard for the spiritual good of all people
PROTECTION: Labor in praying and caring to stir up your heart to love all people.

7. PITFALL: Disregard for the Biblical mystery of marriage.
PROTECTION: Remind yourself repeatedly that your marriage is a living drama of Christ's relationship to the church.

8. PITFALL: Compartmentalizing of life.
PROTECTION: View everything—absolutely everything—as woven together by its relationship to the value of the glory of God.

9. PITFALL: A sense of being above the necessity of suffering and self-denial.
PROTECTION: Never forget the promise: "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). And never forget that the Son of Man had no place to lay his head (Luke 9:58). And develop a Biblical theology of futility and suffering, especially from Romans 8:17-30.

10. PITFALL: Giving in to self-pity under the pressures and loneliness of life.
PROTECTION: Embrace the essence of "Christian Hedonism"—the doctrine that no one who suffers the loss of any earthly blessing in the service of Christ will fail to be repaid a hundred-fold now (with persecutions!) and in the age to come eternal life (Mark 10:29-30).

Source: John Piper