James 1:12
12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
1 Corinthians 10: 13
13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Ephesians 4:22-
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
- Temptations fall into two categories.
- The desire to do wrong things.
- Involves wanting to get drunk, commit adultery, steal, lie, etc.
- Not to do the right thing.
- Involves staying home from church, not tithing, not sharing your faith in Jesus Christ with others, etc.
- Every time you sin you are hurt.
- Lies that open the door for temptations traps.
-
- Trap number 1: It couldn’t happen to me!
-
- I’m better than that. That temptation won’t happen to me. We are the most vulnerable when we believe we are the strongest.
- Trap number 2: I am the only one with this problem.
-
- We think that no one has felt such intense pressure to give into a particular temptation then we are right now.
- Trap number 3: God has abandoned me.
-
- God will never leave us, he is faithful.
- We don’t always feel the closeness of God when we are going through storms, and some will take that to mean that God is not with them anymore.
- God will never leave us nor forsake us.
- Sometimes we are not aware of God’s presence but that doesn’t mean that God is not with us.
- As we get deeper into temptation we start to move away from God and because of that we may not sense the presence of him clearly.
- God is faithful and wants the best for us.
- Trap number 4: I don’t have a choice.
-
- One of Satan’s most used lies is that the temptation overwhelms us and we don’t have a choice in the matter.
- You are putting the responsibility on somebody else when you blame the devil.
- There is never a situation where we are forced into sin, it is always a choice.
- Sin will ruin and destroy us.
- How do we stay out and away from temptation?
-
- Christians should quote the Bible when tempted. Jesus quoted scripture when he was tempted.
- Christians should hide God’s word in their hearts.
- We should pray for deliverance from our sins. God will clear us from all of our sins.
- Confession means more than to say sorry, it means to call sin what God calls sin.
- We can’t call God our Lord then fall right back into temptation.
- Faith is having trust in our Heavenly Father. We should walk by faith and not anything else.
- When we get our eyes off Jesus then we start to fall into temptation again.
- Jesus says to keep our eyes on him. We need to follow after Jesus and not after anything else.