ON TEMPTATION
A number of years ago, the Douglas Aircraft company was competing with Boeing to sell Eastern Airlines its first big jets. War hero Eddie Rickenbacker, the head of Eastern Airlines, reportedly told Donald Douglas that the specifications and claims made by Douglas’s company for the DC-8 were close to Boeing’s on everything except noise suppression. Rickenbacker then gave Douglas one last chance to out-promise Boeing on this feature. After consulting with his engineers, Douglas reported that he didn’t feel he could make that promise. Rickenbacker replied, "I know you can’t, I just wanted to see if you were still honest." (Today in the Word, MBI, October, 1991, p. 22.)
Eddie Rickenbacker claimed holiness in his hour of temptation. You know the feeling too. It may be the temptation to cheat on your tax return by not identifying all your income so that you get a bigger refund check; it may be to make promises about your product (that are false) to induced someone to buy it; it may be to watch a program or commercial on T.V. that is morally indecent; or it may be to stare at a woman that is provocatively dressed. By the way, the intent of women’s clothes designers is to entice you through their product to look--lust!
The truth is that temptation is a part of our everyday Christian life. Christ was not exempt; neither are you. You will be tempted and always will be tempted. Holiness of character depends upon your resisting these temptations.