Tuesday March 29, 2022

Scripture James 1: ¹³ When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; ¹⁴ but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Life Lesson: The fact that temptation often times originates in the human heart ought to be all the incentive any of us requires to guard both our heart and our mind through the study of, and faith in, the Word of God.

– It is clearly the intention of the enemy to incite the child of God to lay blame at the feet of God for his/her struggles with temptation.  In Genesis 3, Satan first accused the Lord of lying regarding the certainty of death for eating the forbidden fruit and then suggested to the innocent mind of Eve that God was withholding something good and fulfilling from her.  

– How many of us are led into temptation because we have somehow believed the accuser that firstly, God’s Word is untrustworthy and then that God is withholding something good and fulfilling from us by calling the thing we want, sin?  Look into it and you will see the natural progression that many wrestle with in this seduction into sin. 

– It is not God who is tempting us, it is our own natural inclination toward rebellion.  The fact that something exists that we desire but that we know we should not have and that to take it would be sin is not of the Lord’s making, it is our own.   You reason, “But God has put it right there and yet has told me, I cannot have it and therefore, it is God who is tempting me”.  This line of reasoning does not follow.  Have you heard it said, Eccl. 3:  ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time”?   

– When we permit our own desire to overrule the law of the Spirit, Rom. 8:2 we turn away from faith and instead are led by the flesh.  Many today, thinking themselves as God fearers are in fact idolaters who show more reverence for the lust of the flesh than for their love of God.  Listen to what James tells us about temptation, “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.”  While we do everything we can to rationalize our desires, or to lay blame on anything and everything we can think of, yes even on God for our moral failures; the eternal truth of God’s word informs us in no uncertain terms that sin springs from our own natural sinful desires.  In fact, it is our own desires, not someone else’s, but our own desires that drag us away from the path of truth and righteousness.  James then uses language depictive of sexual intimacy to illustrate the seductive nature of our flirtation with sin.  Christian, when we who are the bride of Christ flirt with sinful desire, we are as the unfaithful spouse given over to adultery and that sinful union will procreate the bondage of sin and the bondage of sin will, apart from repentance, inevitably lead to death.   Remain faithful to the One who has saved you! Who has ransomed you! And who has given you a new name!  Silence sin at the door of desire by making your love for Christ your greatest desire!