Do you flee from temptation or do you grab it with both hands?
So, whilst doing my study on temptation and lust, I realised several things;
It is so easy to be tempted when we stray from God’s will or when we think that we don’t need to spend time with Him.
God NEVER gives us more than we can manage, in fact He always gives us a way out – 1 Corinthians 10:13.
Often we allow ourselves to be tempted and fall into sin because we know what triggers the sinful act, but rather than fleeing from it, we run into it with open arms!
I decided to look back to the story of Adam and Eve for this subject because they are a prime example of how one can fall into temptation. The enemy tricked Eve into believing that God was lying to Eve and that He didn’t want Eve to be like Him. Eve believed him and this is the issue. Many of us today, still allow Satan to toy with our minds trying his best to manipulate us.
2 Corinthians 10:5 states that, ‘we destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.’ Now don’t get me wrong, I struggle with this daily. I am a Christian, yes, but I am not at all perfect. At times I am guilty of allowing the enemy to tell me his lies, but I am learning to cast down those stupid thoughts and rebuke the enemy and his lies. He wants us to sin, he wants us to fail, so that we can join him in hell, but we have to do better. We can’t allow the enemy and his silly lies to hold us back from pursuing what God wants us to do.
If we believe the enemy and his lies, this ultimately leads to sin..then what? After sinning comes the guilt, the shame and we hide ourselves from God. As soon as we decide to walk away from God and leave God out of our lives, this is where we allow the devil to enter our lives. God instructed Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for their good. God wasn’t keeping any good thing from them, He allowed them to eat from all of the trees in the garden, but just not that one. Did they know better than God?!
No! So, why did they ignore him?
Simply because as humans curiosity gets the better of us and often we know already that something is not good for us, but we allow our flesh to lead and we do what we are not supposed to do anyway.
This brings me on to my next point. In 2 Samuel 11:2-22, I looked at the story of David, Uriah and Bathsheba. Quite the love triangle right? Wrong! David acted out of lust after seeing Bathsheba and he wanted to find out more about her. After learning that she was married, did that stop David?! No! He still pursued her and entertained his lustful desire. After discovering that David got Bathsheba pregnant, he decided to have her husband Uriah killed. This shows the levels that David would go to in order to cover up his affair with Bathsheba.
David became ruthless and unfortunately he only seemed to care about himself and his desires. He didn’t appear to display any remorse when he learnt of Uriah’s death. This is what happens when we continue to sin repeatedly, we will become immune to the sinful act and it won’t even bother us anymore. There will be no guilt, nothing.
Rather than succumbing to temptation, let’s flee it instead. Sin is not pretty and neither are the consequences, so never allow yourself to become passive to sin. It really is not worth it.
With that being said, we must remember that we serve an awesome God! 1 John 1:9 states, ‘But if we confess our sins to him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.’ Don’t suffer in silence, confess your sins or struggles to God. He loves you with an everlasting love, the kind of love that money cannot buy. He wants to see you make it to heaven. Be encouraged.
Check out this video by an inspirational young man of God:
http://youtu.be/l1cj0qlof-4
With love,
Roxanne-Sasha x
