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. James 1:12
Let's continue the study about temptation in this chapter. We saw about three types of troubles that we face in our spiritual lives and we saw about how the first two types of tests and trials and biblical examples of them and we gave an introduction about the third type which is temptation. I gave a note that temptation never comes from God but comes only from the devil. The satan doesn't need the permission from God to tempt people. Because, it is within his limits and God allows his children to be tempted by satan and He wants us to overcome the temptations because that bring glory to His name and glory to us as well. Jesus Himself gone through the temptations at the start of His ministry. We will study about temptations in detail and how to overcome them in detail.
We must understand that temptation is not a sin in itself but it will lead to sin. It means that the devil cannot push you to commit sin. All he can do is, He can tempt you with all the attractions and he can hit your weakness areas, he can work in your thoughts, give you sinful memories but he cannot make you commit sin. To better explain, let's take the temptation of Eve. The serpent asked the question to Eve and spoke to her, lied to her and convinced her to cross the line. But, the serpent didn't pluck the fruit and pushed it into Eve's mouth. This is the way the devil works. Take the temptation of Jesus, Satan didn't bring food and pushed Jesus to eat that, didn't push Jesus from the pinnacle or didn't make Him bow under him. Just he tried to convince Jesus to commit those sins. Hope you understand now. That is the trick of Satan. He designed the sins that the entire world commit and tries to make the believers commit the sins but he can only tempt but the choice of committing it or not. That's where the control is given to us.
To know why we commit sin, we need to understand about temptation in detail. Let's study about the three basic forms of temptations. The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. 1 John 2:16. The SELF nature of flesh crave for these appetites. For example, I can say our mind is like a remote control for these temptations which are like TV programs. Whatever we want to tune using our remote, the programs will run as per our choice. But, there is a built in nature in human flesh for these things like how all the channels are built in inside remote. When Adam and Eve sinned, all the humans got a bondage for these types of temptations. Let us take the original sin. When the serpent tempted Eve, we could see there are three ways in which Eve got tempted. "when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." Gen 3:6. First, she saw the fruit was good for food and it shows the lust of the flesh, Second, it was pleasant to the eyes, directly corresponds to the lust of the eye. Thirdly, it is desirable to make one wise, it shows the pride of life because it promises to get her wise in a form equivalent to that of God. Looks like it is the best thing in garden of Eden except that it was forbidden by God. Can you make out a point here? All that glitters is not Gold.
Let's understand why God has put such a condition and tree. God created man not only in His own image but He created them with the free will. Otherwise, He is like some other animal creature which cannot think and decide. Animals just work based on their instincts. If they want food, they find food or hunt other animal. If they want sex, they find a mate and just they were driven by what they want next. A human is far above an animal being and the specialty is he can think and decide, he can choose what he wants to do. The ability to think and the free will of choice makes man superior than the other created beings. God created humans in His own form to complete His masterpiece. One more point, let's understand why God created humans at first place. The reason God created human is because He is love and He wants to show His love to someone who could understand that love and reciprocate it back. Though He created many angels and other spiritual beings who are at heaven, He wanted someone like Him to show His complete love. Whom do we love most, our child or our pet, a silly question, but as simple as that, isn't it? Instead of just an obedient angel who works like a machine, God wanted a similar kind of being who could think independently and at the same time show the same love back to Him.
To know whether human loves Him back, God just wanted to test the obedience of Adam and Eve whether they love Him, honor Him even if He is not present with them. For that, He designed a condition in the form of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If I want to know my daughter truly respects me or honor me, I can give a condition like that there is a box which is available for you to access but you shouldn't open. Obviously, she is not going to open at my presence. But, if I am not. Why that condition? Not to forbid her from the contents of the box but to say everything I do have belongs to you but still I am your master. God wanted the same thing out of Adam and Eve. He let them know all of the world created is theirs but just wanted to let them know He is their creator and they should love Him and obey Him and trust Him alone for their needs. But, to really test them, the object that is forbidden should be attractive. If I give something of little value to my daughter, that is not of much importance to her she will obviously won't be interested. But, if it is something thrilling, something of lot of interest, she will have the temptation to check what is in the box. Same thing happened to Eve. But, their is another player here in the form of serpent who really wanted to upset God who had thrown Him out of heaven tempted Eve to disobey God. Before that though Eve might have saw that fruit, she wouldn't thought about eating that. She didn't have a pressing need to eat that one. But, when there is one who tempts, then your mind actually conceives the action first. Eve thought about eating the fruit in the mind, to know its taste and she couldn't resist. Hope you understood how she had fallen.
Now, I feel it is clear what is temptation and what is sin. Until the thought comes up, Eve was clean. But, when the temptor brought the idea, Eve was tempted and thought about committing the act. She is still in temptation phase but the sin has originated in the thought. But, only when she plucked the fruit and ate that, she committed the sin. Now, the sin got fulfilled. This is exactly what each one of us go through in our life. This entire cycle is well documented by James in his first chapter. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James 1:13-15. There is a phase by phase development from temptation to sin and to death. If we learn to realize and stop this cycle, we can overcome the temptations from getting converted to sinful ideas and then actual committing of sin.
Jesus is also tempted based on these three forms. First, to make the stones to bread represents the lust of the flesh as he is hungry. Second of jumping from the temple tower tempts whether he boasts about His power and to prove He is indeed the son so it attributes to the pride of life and the last one of riches of this world is the lust of the eye and pride as well. But, how Jesus overcame every temptation. Jesus didn't argue with satan, He simply didn't refuse or He didn't say "I am Son of God, I know that and I needn't prove to you." Instead, He faced each and every temptation with the Word of God. He met every situation with the appropriate scripture that made the devil powerless. When Jesus answered for the first temptation that it was written a man doesn't live just by bread but by every Word of God, the devil couldn't oppose. But, he is clever and cunning, he immediately tempted Jesus by the basis of another scripture in the second temptation. He used Psalm 91 and tried to misuse the promise of angels carrying without stumble but by making Jesus to fall from the tallest tower and tried to made Jesus to commit suicide. But, Jesus, our Lord simply overcame by another scripture. It shows that sometimes even we get tempted by some scriptures which are inappropriate to the situations that we are in. Unless we are strong in all the scriptures, we will tend to fail. And the third one, though Jesus had already overcame two temptations, He could exercise the power to drive satan out this time. So, He told away with you satan. But, He is sure to set the scores right by quoting the appropriate scripture again and told the devil we always have to worship God alone. Glory to God. The tempter can never ever win over his creator. He might be clever but one who created him is omniscient and He Himself is the source of wisdom.
The first and foremost weapon in battling out temptation is the Word of God. You could see the armor of God in Ephesians 6 and we could classify them to defense and attack. We need to have the truth as belt and the Word of God as sword to overcome all these types of temptations. How can we use the Word of God as sword if we don't know that at all? That's why we need to meditate the Word of God day and night and filled our hearts and minds with the truth of the Word. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. If our heart is filled with scriptures, we will give more fruits, overcome the temptations and live a victorious Christian life. Let us try to fill our heart, mind and thoughts with the scriptures and replace the sinful thoughts with the Word of God from today on wards. Memorizing scriptures and recollecting them is another method. Meditating the scriptures is best according to Psalm 1:2-3. The Word of God is power. Let's take a decision to read and meditate the scriptures every day. If you are not doing already, I believe the Holy Spirit has lead you to this page to start this habit immediately from this day on wards. As a personal testimony, I was also a sinful person living in lust and filth. But, the Holy Spirit touched me changed me to meditate the Word of God daily. Only thing I did is, I took a decision that I will stick to reading the Word of God everyday whatever the situation may be or whatever the difficulty may be. There could be few days where you could never read. But, that doesn't mean we start to slip. We need to develop a habit of reading the Word and praying as some of our other habits like brushing, bathing and eating. So, I invite every reader to try and follow that.
In my next chapter, I will try to explain how to overcome lust, the common temptation that we prone to fall every now and then. Why it is so hard to resist the lust? I will try to present some useful ideas. May God give you all the wisdom and strength and make you bear plenty of fruits for His name. All glory, honor and praise to you God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let's continue the study about temptation in this chapter. We saw about three types of troubles that we face in our spiritual lives and we saw about how the first two types of tests and trials and biblical examples of them and we gave an introduction about the third type which is temptation. I gave a note that temptation never comes from God but comes only from the devil. The satan doesn't need the permission from God to tempt people. Because, it is within his limits and God allows his children to be tempted by satan and He wants us to overcome the temptations because that bring glory to His name and glory to us as well. Jesus Himself gone through the temptations at the start of His ministry. We will study about temptations in detail and how to overcome them in detail.
We must understand that temptation is not a sin in itself but it will lead to sin. It means that the devil cannot push you to commit sin. All he can do is, He can tempt you with all the attractions and he can hit your weakness areas, he can work in your thoughts, give you sinful memories but he cannot make you commit sin. To better explain, let's take the temptation of Eve. The serpent asked the question to Eve and spoke to her, lied to her and convinced her to cross the line. But, the serpent didn't pluck the fruit and pushed it into Eve's mouth. This is the way the devil works. Take the temptation of Jesus, Satan didn't bring food and pushed Jesus to eat that, didn't push Jesus from the pinnacle or didn't make Him bow under him. Just he tried to convince Jesus to commit those sins. Hope you understand now. That is the trick of Satan. He designed the sins that the entire world commit and tries to make the believers commit the sins but he can only tempt but the choice of committing it or not. That's where the control is given to us.
To know why we commit sin, we need to understand about temptation in detail. Let's study about the three basic forms of temptations. The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. 1 John 2:16. The SELF nature of flesh crave for these appetites. For example, I can say our mind is like a remote control for these temptations which are like TV programs. Whatever we want to tune using our remote, the programs will run as per our choice. But, there is a built in nature in human flesh for these things like how all the channels are built in inside remote. When Adam and Eve sinned, all the humans got a bondage for these types of temptations. Let us take the original sin. When the serpent tempted Eve, we could see there are three ways in which Eve got tempted. "when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." Gen 3:6. First, she saw the fruit was good for food and it shows the lust of the flesh, Second, it was pleasant to the eyes, directly corresponds to the lust of the eye. Thirdly, it is desirable to make one wise, it shows the pride of life because it promises to get her wise in a form equivalent to that of God. Looks like it is the best thing in garden of Eden except that it was forbidden by God. Can you make out a point here? All that glitters is not Gold.
Let's understand why God has put such a condition and tree. God created man not only in His own image but He created them with the free will. Otherwise, He is like some other animal creature which cannot think and decide. Animals just work based on their instincts. If they want food, they find food or hunt other animal. If they want sex, they find a mate and just they were driven by what they want next. A human is far above an animal being and the specialty is he can think and decide, he can choose what he wants to do. The ability to think and the free will of choice makes man superior than the other created beings. God created humans in His own form to complete His masterpiece. One more point, let's understand why God created humans at first place. The reason God created human is because He is love and He wants to show His love to someone who could understand that love and reciprocate it back. Though He created many angels and other spiritual beings who are at heaven, He wanted someone like Him to show His complete love. Whom do we love most, our child or our pet, a silly question, but as simple as that, isn't it? Instead of just an obedient angel who works like a machine, God wanted a similar kind of being who could think independently and at the same time show the same love back to Him.
To know whether human loves Him back, God just wanted to test the obedience of Adam and Eve whether they love Him, honor Him even if He is not present with them. For that, He designed a condition in the form of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If I want to know my daughter truly respects me or honor me, I can give a condition like that there is a box which is available for you to access but you shouldn't open. Obviously, she is not going to open at my presence. But, if I am not. Why that condition? Not to forbid her from the contents of the box but to say everything I do have belongs to you but still I am your master. God wanted the same thing out of Adam and Eve. He let them know all of the world created is theirs but just wanted to let them know He is their creator and they should love Him and obey Him and trust Him alone for their needs. But, to really test them, the object that is forbidden should be attractive. If I give something of little value to my daughter, that is not of much importance to her she will obviously won't be interested. But, if it is something thrilling, something of lot of interest, she will have the temptation to check what is in the box. Same thing happened to Eve. But, their is another player here in the form of serpent who really wanted to upset God who had thrown Him out of heaven tempted Eve to disobey God. Before that though Eve might have saw that fruit, she wouldn't thought about eating that. She didn't have a pressing need to eat that one. But, when there is one who tempts, then your mind actually conceives the action first. Eve thought about eating the fruit in the mind, to know its taste and she couldn't resist. Hope you understood how she had fallen.
Now, I feel it is clear what is temptation and what is sin. Until the thought comes up, Eve was clean. But, when the temptor brought the idea, Eve was tempted and thought about committing the act. She is still in temptation phase but the sin has originated in the thought. But, only when she plucked the fruit and ate that, she committed the sin. Now, the sin got fulfilled. This is exactly what each one of us go through in our life. This entire cycle is well documented by James in his first chapter. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James 1:13-15. There is a phase by phase development from temptation to sin and to death. If we learn to realize and stop this cycle, we can overcome the temptations from getting converted to sinful ideas and then actual committing of sin.
Jesus is also tempted based on these three forms. First, to make the stones to bread represents the lust of the flesh as he is hungry. Second of jumping from the temple tower tempts whether he boasts about His power and to prove He is indeed the son so it attributes to the pride of life and the last one of riches of this world is the lust of the eye and pride as well. But, how Jesus overcame every temptation. Jesus didn't argue with satan, He simply didn't refuse or He didn't say "I am Son of God, I know that and I needn't prove to you." Instead, He faced each and every temptation with the Word of God. He met every situation with the appropriate scripture that made the devil powerless. When Jesus answered for the first temptation that it was written a man doesn't live just by bread but by every Word of God, the devil couldn't oppose. But, he is clever and cunning, he immediately tempted Jesus by the basis of another scripture in the second temptation. He used Psalm 91 and tried to misuse the promise of angels carrying without stumble but by making Jesus to fall from the tallest tower and tried to made Jesus to commit suicide. But, Jesus, our Lord simply overcame by another scripture. It shows that sometimes even we get tempted by some scriptures which are inappropriate to the situations that we are in. Unless we are strong in all the scriptures, we will tend to fail. And the third one, though Jesus had already overcame two temptations, He could exercise the power to drive satan out this time. So, He told away with you satan. But, He is sure to set the scores right by quoting the appropriate scripture again and told the devil we always have to worship God alone. Glory to God. The tempter can never ever win over his creator. He might be clever but one who created him is omniscient and He Himself is the source of wisdom.
The first and foremost weapon in battling out temptation is the Word of God. You could see the armor of God in Ephesians 6 and we could classify them to defense and attack. We need to have the truth as belt and the Word of God as sword to overcome all these types of temptations. How can we use the Word of God as sword if we don't know that at all? That's why we need to meditate the Word of God day and night and filled our hearts and minds with the truth of the Word. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. If our heart is filled with scriptures, we will give more fruits, overcome the temptations and live a victorious Christian life. Let us try to fill our heart, mind and thoughts with the scriptures and replace the sinful thoughts with the Word of God from today on wards. Memorizing scriptures and recollecting them is another method. Meditating the scriptures is best according to Psalm 1:2-3. The Word of God is power. Let's take a decision to read and meditate the scriptures every day. If you are not doing already, I believe the Holy Spirit has lead you to this page to start this habit immediately from this day on wards. As a personal testimony, I was also a sinful person living in lust and filth. But, the Holy Spirit touched me changed me to meditate the Word of God daily. Only thing I did is, I took a decision that I will stick to reading the Word of God everyday whatever the situation may be or whatever the difficulty may be. There could be few days where you could never read. But, that doesn't mean we start to slip. We need to develop a habit of reading the Word and praying as some of our other habits like brushing, bathing and eating. So, I invite every reader to try and follow that.
In my next chapter, I will try to explain how to overcome lust, the common temptation that we prone to fall every now and then. Why it is so hard to resist the lust? I will try to present some useful ideas. May God give you all the wisdom and strength and make you bear plenty of fruits for His name. All glory, honor and praise to you God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
