The Accuser of the believers

The devils job is to discredit and smear the Gospel and its messengers as much as possible. If he cant make it appear downright corrupt, he is content for it to appear, irrelevant and foolish and only interesting to losers, dorks and wowsers.
Today the media trumpets forth the improprieties, scandals and sins of clergymen. To be sure, there are some corrupt and bad ambassadors for Jesus in ministry positions. This in no way denotes that the Message itself or Jesus Himself is wrong or foolish.
One way to analogize it is: If the pipes are rusty and clogged it doesnt mean that the water itself is polluted, it just means that the plumbing carrying the water has issues.
One man prayed, "Lord, help me survive your servants"
We serve a perfect Father in Heaven, who has a perfect Son named Jesus Christ. We are also Helped and empowered by a perfect and awesome Holy Spirit.
The church are Gods ambassadors on the earth, the catch is that God has decided to use imperfect and sometimes very foolish vessels to carry His Living Water to a dying and thirsty world.
It would be great if God had perfect ministers to do His work, the only problem is that the whole human race is fallen and broken and imperfect.
One man once said" If you ever find the perfect church dont join it because it would then be imperfect".
So we must realize that God often uses wounded healers and also sometimes bound liberators. Of course, if a minister acts on the Word he preaches it will work for him as surely as it has Supernatural impact to others he ministers to.
The Word always works for those who will work with it.

Great Joy and some Suffering

Life is full of Great Joy and sufferings and trials. This is normal. Jesus Christ never promised his disciples a bed of roses. On the other hand you may receive the metaphoric equivalent of a bed of roses from time to time on your sojourn through life, but not continually. There will be storms, as Jesus said.
One should always be aware that wherever there are roses there are nearly always thorns that come with the package.
We love the beauty of the rose and the fragrance too. The rose is a depiction of the life we are offered in Christ. It is a life full of beauty and aromatic joy, but oftentimes we overlook that it is also a life of suffering and pain.
There is joy and life that results from allowing the old adamic life of sin and selfishness to be crucified with Christ. This means though that we will experience the pain of allowing our old desires from the natural adamic man to be mortified. The Amplied version of the Bible expands the meaning of the word mortify as "to deaden and deprive the fleshly nature of its lusts that lurk within"

Colossians 3:5

Amplified Bible (AMP)
5 So kill (deaden, deprive of power) the evil desire lurking in your members [those animal impulses and all that is earthly in you that is employed in sin]:

Many today, when they read a Scripture like the above, will limit its application strictly to the sexual realm. In fact this is far from the truth, evil desires and animal impulses etc have a far wider spectrum than unbiblical sexual practices. Sex, in its context in a loving marriage, is the greatest gift given to a couple to exhilarate and enjoy. Sex is beautiful, healing, satisfying and inspiring--a magnificent gift when used according to the Givers instructions.
Of course when used recklessly it becomes a destructive force, in much the same way that any power can be misused (such as electricity, petroleum, water pressure, money etc)
The deadening and depriving spoken of in the above Scripture is the work of The Spirit in the believers life. It means yes, we must use our will to obey God and his guidance but it does not mean he leaves us to our own limited strength or power. Rather it means he will supply the Power of His Resurrection Life to set us free from the forces at work to bring us into bondage.
It is our Will (submitted to His Will) and His Power to accomplish what we cant (in our own strength or natural willpower)
Th e word lust loosely translated means "strong desire". There are many strong desires that can get us into trouble. Look at a list of the so called 7 deadly sins ( sexual lust is but one)
Pride, envy, gluttony, lust, greed, wrath, sloth.
All of these are desires that get out of hand and choke the Life of God from developing, much like weeds choke the good plants or fruits in a garden.
It is interesting to note that pride heads up the list of sins. Pride is the root of all other sin and can be the hardest to discern in ourselves. Lucifer didnt get kicked out of Heaven for running off with one of the angels, His unparelled pride resulted in a terrible destiny for him. ( see Isaiah 14:12-14)
So let us go on to spiritual maturity in Christ, with Gods help we can root out the weeds of destructive desires and grow the fruits of the Holy Spirit in our life instead.
These fruits are:

Galatians 5:22

King James Version (KJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Gods promise is that we will have life and health and peace for ever, so its worth paying the price in the short term for such a wonderful blessing that never runs out.