Tempting Temptation

Someone once said, “I wouldn’t be tempted if temptation wasn’t so tempting.”   Someone else said, “Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we’ll find it.” Another person said, “The devil made me do it the first time, but ever since then I’ve been doing it on my own.”  Someone else said, “I can resist anything but temptation.”   So why do we struggle so much with temptation?  Why is it such a battle?  We often throw out the common responses such as our sin nature and our flesh as ways to explain our struggles.  And as fundamentally correct as those answers may be, perhaps there is an additional perspective that we should consider.

John Piper suggests that sin [and temptation] “gets its power by persuading me to believe that I will be more happy if I follow it.  The power of all temptation is the prospect that it will make me happier.”  As I read this quote I began to understand that giving in to temptation is really a result of us believing lies.  It is a result of us focusing on the lies that the temptation is telling us instead of the truth of Scripture.

Here are a few of the lies that we tell ourselves in those times leading up to temptation, when we are in the process of giving in to temptation, and after we have finished with the act of sin that tempted us.

1- I would never do that

2- No one has ever faced this

3- God doesn’t care

4- I don’t have a choice

5- It’s not my responsibility

6- It was too much to bear

I encourage you to read I Corinthians 10:12-13 and notice how these verses combat each of the lies mentioned above.