A loss of future perspective makes you crazy. Almost every adultery situation I’ve ever seen, for instance, includes a cheating spouse who honestly believes that he or she is not going to get caught. The cheater often doesn’t want the marriage to end in divorce but instead wants to keep everything the same—spouse, kids, and lover, too. That’s irrational and completely contrary to the way the world works. But you can convince yourself—or be convinced—that it will work for you. You’re special, after all. That’s the way temptation functions. We put consequences out of our minds, both temporal and eternal consequences. When it comes to God, we convince ourselves that God doesn’t see (Ps. 10:11; 94:7) or that he’ll never call us to account (Ps. 10:13), but in order to do that we have to quiet our God-designed conscience that points continually to the criteria by which we’ll be judged before the Creator’s tribunal (Rom. 2:16) (Russell Moore, Tempted and Tried).

Remember, you are not the exception to the rule! Temporary, present satisfaction of sinful desires leads to future pain and misery and consequences . . . all the time.