“So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up in honor.” (James 4:7-10 NLT)
What tempts you most? Where is it in your life you find it most difficult to say “no?” How has Satan most effectively and consistently defeated you and caused you to sin when you absolutely knew it was wrong?
The word “temptation” as used in the Bible means: “an experiment, attempt, trial, proving. It’s the trial of man’s fidelity, integrity, virtue, constancy; an enticement to sin, whether arising from the desires or from the outward circumstances.” There’s much more, but you get the idea. Temptation isn’t sin but is the devil’s strategy to pull us away from God and into his demonic control resulting in sin.
David Jeremiah asked a pertinent question when he wrote: “How do we fight this ever-evolving virus of temptation? Stay close to the Great Physician!… Immerse yourself in God’s Word, talk to Him in prayer, confess your sins, consider Satan an enemy, and let Jesus Christ live His life through you by His Spirit more and more each day!”
Sounds good, and it is, but it’s not always as easy to do as we’d like to think. It’s a process and a constant battle, but, over time, it does get easier to recognize the enemy’s strategy and devise, with the Lord’s help, an effective defense. The Armor of God as outlined in Ephesians 6, gives us confidence in our ability to defeat Satan, but we can’t miss the most essential piece as outlined in the verses from James above. “So humble yourselves before God.”
Without humility we’ll begin to believe we’re enough in and of ourselves. The end of that fantasy is defeat and can lead us into sinning in ways that are literally life changing. Billy Sunday said: “Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole. Yielding is opening the door and inviting him in.” What do you see when you look through the “keyhole?” I can tell you what you won’t see: a devil in a red suit with horns and holding a pitchfork.
You’ll see that for which your heart most longs apart from Christ, that for which, if you’re honest, is what you’re working hard to have. It won’t be the same for all of us, but for many it will be a shapely woman or a handsome man; a shiny new car or new, spacious house; a prestigious position or at least a job where we’ll be recognized and appreciated; a relationship with someone who will understand us, see through our idiosyncrasies and love us for who we want to be, which, ironically, very likely isn’t the person the Lord wants you to be.
You have to fill in your own blanks, but the point is, it will be something you strongly desire, but fear God will never allow you to have. That’s how Satan got Eve and Adam to cave, He offered them something they perceived God was keeping from them. And indeed, He was, not because He didn’t love them, but because He did.
Do you not understand that there are some potentially very good things that would destroy you? Fortune, fame, recognition, popularity, success – the list is nearly endless of the ways Satan could manipulate us and use the very thing we thought we most wanted to destroy us. That’s why temptation is so deadly.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 