Our weapon against temptation

Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Sin doesn't just happen to us. For the most part we are not victims of sin but perpetuators. I can introduce situations and circumstances that might cause another to sin, presenting temptation to them and for that I'd be guilty. I can also put myself into situations where I know temptation to sin will be present and then I can presumptuously assume that I'll be able to overcome temptation and remain free from committing sins the temptation is drawing me towards. We are not blameless when it comes to temptation, often inviting temptation and then turning around and lamenting our ability to overcome, to resist the very temptation we've placed in front of ourselves.

Satan wants to disguise temptations as being harmless, seemingly innocent so that we surround ourselves by them and in essence we are tempting God aren't we? Seriously, aren't we? It's a different situation when we come face to face with temptation unexpectedly, but altogether another story when we bring temptation to ourselves. In our society today there is so much corruption it would most likely take leaving the mainstream way of life and entering into the existence of the backwoods sorts to escape. One of the biggest tools of Satan is what we consider our entertainment pursuits. How quickly we become almost obsessed with not missing an episode of one show or another we are watching on televison. How crazily absorbed we are in gaming adventures. We've even let books- ebooks, books on our Nooks or Kindles, and even the old fashioned hand-held books have obsessive qualities to us. To suggest to most people that living with out television, games, books, computers would be cause for saying we are crazy, when in truth it's probably what would be best for us. A lot of us live for our entertainment merely enduring work and the time spent in between our necessities of sleeping, eating, and so on. It makes you wonder a doesn't it, the ol' pursuit of happiness we have a right to. Do you think our forefathers who wrote that 'right' into existence had today's way of life in mind? God, in His word to us told us plainly without mincing words that we are to set our TREASURES in heaven. This world was not sugar-coated by our Savior.

Joh 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

What are we going to have in the world? Tribulation.
Where do we find peace? In Jesus.

Peace, joy, happiness, contentment- these things are NOT to be found in our world, but in Jesus. This goes right back to finding joy in 'divers temptations'. We only find joy because we know that Jesus is working in us, we are being presented with an opportunity to witness to ourselves or publically of Jesus' peace, His love.

Going back to temptations and being tempted, we sabotage ourselves and then like to blame God for not giving us strength to overcome our temptations. The next time you are tempted that you notice- and believe me we don't always notice because these sorts of things have become our way of life- the next time you realize you are facing a temptation and haven't yet succumbed to indulging in that temptation ask yourself if you put yourself in temptation's way. Did you some how perpetuate the situation? Did you know you would face temptation and yet go ahead full steam just because, well, it's part of your life?

Another question we need to ask ourselves is… are we focusing on material temptations and ignoring our internal temptations? Do we sometimes instigate a situation that will have us succumbing to anger, jealousy, envy? There is a lot we need to think about, and to shove it all aside and not think about it does no good at all.

Regardless of how the temptations come about there is one thing we need to talk more about and that is resisting temptation. Seems almost silly to say you need to resist the very temptation you might have encouraged doesn't it, but we are far from free of Satan's influence. So many of us have grown up drenched in Satan's ways- and those ways were called perfectly normal, average, acceptable, expected. When we are called to follow our Savior with a heart that is truly His, we will suddenly begin to notice parts of our lives that aren't truly acceptable.

Temptations need to be resisted, yes?

Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Temptations need to be resisted and we are given the key to that resistance and it isn't a magic pill or potion to swallow, it is active resistance, intellectual resistance. Jesus did not come face to face with Satan and his tempting and close his eyes hoping Satan would leave off, that he would go away. Jesus was prepared for that direct temptation from years and years of immersing Himself in His Father's word.

We ignore the word of God, we scarcely know a verse or two by heart and this is the very protection we are given against the temptations we will face.

Just because we do not have Satan personally presenting himself to us and tempting us does not mean that evil being isn't present in every temptation we face. He's there even if we cannot hear his voice, even if we cannot see his face, even if we cannot reach out and touch him. This spiritual adversary is there and present with all his evil cunning. So when we are tempted we are being tempted by the same evil entity that tempted our Savior in the wilderness. We need to use the same weapon our Savior used against Him- the WORD of GOD.

'It is written…'

We've been told.
God has said.
God's word reads.
God says.
This is the truth of the matter.
This isn't God's way.
God has revealed.
That is wrong because God told us this is right.

We can't fight temptation by saying we don't want whatever we are being tempted with. We do want it that's what makes it a temptation. If we didn't want what we were being tempted with then it'd be easy to simply ignore the temptation- in fact it wouldn't truly be a temptation at all. So trying to tell ourselves we don't want something we clearly do want is fighting temptation with the wrong weapon. Jesus didn't say he didn't want the stones changed into bread, he stated a fact. He stated WHY it would be WRONG for Him to indulge in the temptation to change those stones into bread.

Mat 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

He was hungry. He wanted to eat, to relieve that hunger.

Mat 4:2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred

Hungry. Very hungry. Desiring food. Famished. Jesus wanted to eat something yet he wasn't given anything to eat, he wasn't near any food, he was in the desert with rocks and sand, not bread and fruit. There was no food, if there had been food then he most likely would have eaten the food. Satan didn't come bearing a platter of meat and cheese with a jug of wine on the side waving it in front of a very hungry Jesus. The outcome would have been the same, because Jesus would not have done anything the Father didn't direct Him to do. He would have refused the food and drink. Some might think that would have been a greater temptation, to have the food right there in front of Him. Yet Satan wasn't really tempting Jesus to simply eat. He was tempting Jesus to DISOBEY God because in disobeying God is where we sin. Satan was tempting Jesus to break the laws of God that were given to human beings. How? By tempting Jesus to set aside the very humanity He'd taken on and reveal His spiritual power selfishly. Satan was trying to get Jesus to shrug off the pains of humanity and use His divinity. Jesus knew that if He used His divinity that He would be admitting that it was impossible for Him to adhere to His humanity and impossible to save those who had been corrupted by Satan.

Mankind was NOT to live for eating and drinking, eating and drinking was not true life. Keeping the body alive means nothing at all without God. There is no point at all in living without God. Obviously mankind does a great job living without God and surviving on food alone, right? Yet the living they are doing is a temporary existence that will perish in the long run. Any scientist will tell you that a man doesn't have to believe in God or His word and he will still live perfectly fine eating. In fact there have been many, many people who have lived their entire lives without God and had seemingly no issues with staying alive. What Jesus is telling us is that life without God is truly a death sentence. At the end of their earthly existence- because there is NOT a single person alive today that was alive 150 years ago and less. We have a life span and when that life span is over there is no living and eating, no keeping alive. The man who has lived out that life span without God will not have eternal life in God, yet the man who has listened and lived by the word of God as well as their food will have life eternal when the Savior comes and raises them from their graves.

Jesus faced Satan and told him - It is written- God has said- that man is not to live only by eating but by God's every word. Living by God's word, following God's word brings life because love is found in God's words, not in food. It's more important to live for God than for self.

It is written.

When you are tempted can you say - It is written?

Maybe we ought to try - It is written, yes?

Jesus used- It is written and He is our example.

1Pe 2:21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.

Christ suffered, we will suffer and Christ was our example and we need to follow our example in all things.

Christ faced temptation unlike any we will ever truly face, and when He faced temptation He turned to God's word. We have to use God's word. God's word is our sword-

Eph 6:17 '...and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God'

If we do not arm ourselves with the only weapon available to us how can we ever hope to face the wiles of the Devil and survive?

Seriously? How? We are told to take the whole armor of God- is it just to play dress up? I don't think so. We are to don our spiritual armor to fight this very real spiritual battle. The weapon of choice is the word of God and we desperately need to know the word of God all through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, the living Word of God.

In His love, always!

Amen.