Trials And Temptations

5. How to fight/overcome TEMPTATIONS?

We are all faced with temptations. No one who belongs to God will be exempt from that. Even Jesus wasn’t. Every day we are given choices to do what our flesh feels like doing or what God intends us to do. Party or don’t go to this party. Go and get drunk with your friends or stay at home. Fornicate or do not! Watch porn or do not! Be lazy and blame others or work hard and prepare. Honor my parents or do not honor them. Tell the truth or tell one small little lie to get off the hook. Believe everything that God has said or doubt everything that I have been taught. The list is endless. The entire day seems to be made up of choices. Let us be honest. Talking about fighting these temptations and actually fighting these temptations are two different things.

(i) Fight to REMEMBER RIGHTLY: We are inclined to forget everything that happened before. We forget all the shame and defeat we felt last time. We forget how distant we felt from God. We forget the consequences of sin when we travelled that road last time. We forget what Jesus has already done for us and the power He has given to us. We are tempted to believe that somehow this time it will be different but it never is. It is like being in a moment of insanity. Being in sin is insanity. How many times we become irrational with short term memory?

Let us not forget 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20 … remember your body, you were bought with a price …

Fight to remember rightly. Remind yourself of the negative and deadly results of sin. Fight to remember rightly the times when you overcame sin, the joy and triumph you experienced in that moment. The devil and our flesh do not want us to remember that part … how satisfied we were in Christ at that time. They want us to remember the momentary pleasure or temporary satisfaction of getting what we wanted in the moment. Fight to remember rightly!

(ii) KILL the EXCUSES: Don’t let an excuse buy you a ticket out. Well God made me this way. If He didn’t want me to sin, then He would not have put me in this situation.

James 1:13-14 … God may allow you to be tempted but He is not the one who tempts you to do evil. The Bible is very clear on this and let us not push things back on God. I have been single for a long time and I don’t know whether I will even get married. It is just going to be one more time. At least my sin is not as bad as what she is doing. I am doing way better than her.

Hey, Hey! God’s grace is unconditional right! What’s one more sin? Romans 6:1-2; Romans 6:10-11. Kill the EXCUSES so that you can kill SIN.

(iii) Fight TEMPTATION with SCRIPTURE: Commit scripture to memory to recall in those times of weakness. There is nothing more powerful than the ‘WORD OF GOD.’ Psalm 119:11.

Jesus exemplifies that powerfully in the Matthew 4 when He is tempted by Satan in the wilderness. Every time Satan tempted Him, Jesus responded with scripture. The interesting part is that the devil knew scripture too but every he used it, he twisted it and used it out of context of its intended meaning. Context is crucial while using and applying God’s Word. It doesn’t work when twisted or out of context. Satan knew the Word but Jesus is the Word that became flesh for us.