Toying with Temptation

Do you 'toy with' temptation? If you act carelessly when it comes to the things that tempt you, kind of ignoring them, and then find yourself 'playing with' the thing that is tempting you, you are probably not resisting temptation very well. It is meant to be resisted, not ignored or toyed with at all. 

The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure. (I Corinthians 10:13)

Temptation comes in all forms. It can be something from 'without' such as cookies in the cookie jar 'calling' for you to eat them when you are trying to watch your weight. It can be from 'another' such as when a coworker wants to share some juicy gossip over lunch about your boss. It could even be from 'within' such as when you are feeling down on yourself and overspend on the online store.

Simply defined, temptation is the desire to do something, especially when it is unwise or just plain wrong. Sometimes we try to 'put lipstick on the pig' and tell ourselves the thing we are considering isn't 'all that bad' because you need to be happy once in a while. It doesn't matter the 'shade of lipstick' you try to use to dress up that pig we call sin; it is still sin!

Whenever we toy with temptation, we are allowing it to toy with us. If you are like so many others, there is a point of 'no return' when the temptation overtakes all manner of reason or will-power one may exhibit at other times. This is why God tells us to resist the devil, and he will flee the scene. (James 4:7) We aren't to entertain his wiles, nor are we to consider what he says as trustworthy. We are to resist - not in our own power, but in the power Christ gives when we call upon him for his help.

The more we 'toy with' temptation, forgoing the instruction to allow him to show us a way out of temptation's path, the more we will give into the wiles of our enemy. Just sayin!

Are you strong enough?

Delilah lulled Samson to sleep with his head in her lap, and then she called in a man to shave off the seven locks of his hair. In this way she began to bring him down, and his strength left him. Then she cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!” When he woke up, he thought, “I will do as before and shake myself free.” But he didn’t realize the Lord had left him. (Judges 16: 19-20)

Samson and Delilah - do you recall the story of his tremendous strength against the Philistine armies? We can learn a few lessons from his life, but probably the most important center around his strengths and his weaknesses. He was a very courageous warrior - not afraid to tackle whatever was in his path. Remember the story of him slaying a lion with his bare hands, rendering his attack unsuccessful? How about him going against the Philistine army and carrying the gates of the city away with him when he felled the army? He was willing to put himself out there, but he also struggled with a bit of lust and stubbornness. 

We find him digging his heels in when he wanted a particular wife - Timnah, a Philistine woman - from the people of the land that God had specifically told the Israelite people not to choose as a mate. He demanded his parents secure her for him because 'she looked good to him'. What we don't realize sometimes is how God can take our stubborn rebellion and work good from the wrong we have chosen. You see, it was Timnah that gave Samson an inroad into the Philistine territory. That simple 'inroad' would be their undoing, but you'd never know it from Samson's attitude toward getting 'his bride'. It appeared he struggled a bit with pride, lust, and rebellion - just like the rest of us.

Even though he had great faith, he struggled to resist the temptations around him. He saw the Philistine land and desired it. He beheld the beauty of the Philistine woman and demanded it her as his own. He found his bride, but did he know her alluring traits would become his undoing? Sin is like that for us - it presents as 'really good' and 'something we must have', then before long the tide turns. What once seemed so alluring becomes the very thing that leaves us powerless and blind! If you don't know the story, it was Delilah that actually took Samson's strength. His lust became her 'power' and it ended up in him compromising one too many times, leaving him with eyes gouged out and humiliated at the hands of the Philistines.

We can be very 'strong' in some ways, full of courage and moxie, but when our heart begins to desire the things God has clearly told us to not 'intermingle' with in life, we place ourselves in some very compromising situations that can leave us 'blind' and 'weak'. What may seem to be 'unbeatable strength' may just be our own stubborn streak making a way for us into compromise. Temptation is hard to resist when we are 'heck-bent' on getting our own way! Just sayin!

At the gate?

You can find lessons in the weirdest things or at the most unlikely spots in life. It helps us connect-the-dots spiritually to receive an object lesson. Imagine a gate that opens up for you to pass through that puts you in a cue in a long line where you are committing to stay in the line for as long as it takes because there is no other way out. One way in, one way out - no skirting the line, no turning around. It speaks of the way we enter into sin in our lives - there is some kind of gate which reminds us we are passing through into some place we may not want to be for very long, but when we do, we are there for the long haul!

Don’t blame God when you are tempted! God cannot be tempted by evil, and he doesn’t use evil to tempt others. We are tempted by our own desires that drag us off and trap us. Our desires make us sin, and when sin is finished with us, it leaves us dead. (James 1:13-15)
 
All temptation comes with a stopping spot before we enter fully into sin. Just like the gate, there is some form of "barrier" which stands between us and sin. You see the gate, go through it and then your are following a path of your choosing. You have a moment to go the other way, but you have to choose to do so BEFORE you enter the gate. There is that moment of decision OUTSIDE of sin's full action. It is what we do at that moment that makes all the difference in what we experience after that! Once we enter into the "experience" of sin, there is no going back. Sin has a cycle. We enter into a circle of sin that takes us places where we will have to make more decisions, pay an even greater price, and then the emotional turmoil of having to go "through" what we entered into begins. Sometimes we don't have a whole lot of time to decide on which "line" will be the best one for us. Quick decisions often don't "pay off" as we might have hoped. 

There is an element of the unknown in every temptation, because we cannot know how things will "play out" since we are not fully in control when we give into sin's enticement. All of life's temptations are really designed to produce some type of "test result". We might pass some of them, but there is always the chance we will not do as well on others! Sin has a way of taking over our lives. Sin has a way of taking control of what we may not want to just "hand over" to just anybody. I don't know about you, but moving out of the driver's seat makes me feel a little like I am losing control. Temptation lures us in - desires and passions drive us forward - and eventually we find ourselves out of control entirely!

Sin gets inside our heads and messes with our thoughts. We don't always know we are being "tapped into", but trust me, sin has a thought process we cannot dismiss - it gets inside us and we find ourselves "fully committed" at some point. Satan cannot read our minds, but we certainly do "tell" him a lot by the way we respond and the stories we "tell" ourselves! The last thing I want to remind us of is the cost of sin. Sin is never free! Once we commit to the path of sin, there is a cost we will pay to escape the clutches of sin. Although it may not seem significant in the short run, in the long run it all adds up! So, if we want to avoid the trap of sin, it begins before we even get to the gate. Once "inside" the cycle of sin, we ride it out - but we rarely come through without some cost to ourselves. Just sayin!

Not IF, but WHEN

Do you have anyone who really 'stands up for you' through thick and thin? In good times and bad - they are just THERE. I know the power of a good friend - a close friend who is there through thick and thin, but I also know the supreme power of a God who is ALWAYS there for me. How about you? Do you know that supreme power - the amazing grace of God? What or who will stand up FOR you and WITH you when all manner of wickedness comes against you? When evil comes from all sides, who will be there? If you are a follower of Christ, having said 'yes' to Jesus, you know the answer to that one.

Who stood up for me against the wicked? Who took my side against evil workers? If God hadn’t been there for me, I never would have made it. The minute I said, “I’m slipping, I’m falling,” your love, God, took hold and held me fast. When I was upset and beside myself, you calmed me down and cheered me up. (Psalm 94:18-19)

When all manner of evil or wickedness seems to be unleashed around you, your natural instinct is to begin to feel the emotional turmoil this creates - you become 'upset'. Something or someone that is 'upset' is 'turned over' - no longer standing upright and steady. That is exactly what the enemy of our souls desires to do more than anything else - get us to a place where we are no longer standing upright and steady - where we will cave and give into compromise and sin. No wonder we need someone 'alongside' when attacks come - we aren't able to steady ourselves!

We will slip on occasion - we are human, after all. We will fall on others. Why are we so hard on ourselves when we begin to slip or find we are falling headlong into compromise or sin? We will always feel the tug of our enemy's pull - but we don't always have to fall. What our psalmist reminds us today is that we can just call out - rescue is as close as that. We can try to 'right' ourselves all on our own, too prideful to admit we need some 'steadying' help, but we shouldn't be surprised when we actually still fall. We aren't always equipped to 'right' ourselves alone!

I think we are always going to deal with temptation in this lifetime - slips will occur. We don't want to admit it, but we are only human. Our pride can keep us from asking for the help we so desperately need. Surround yourself with good friends, others who will support you with their faith when yours is a bit wobbly. Get into God's Word and let it get into you. Stand as best you can but remember this - you don't stand alone - God's protection awaits you WHEN you begin to wobble. Not IF, but WHEN. Just sayin!

Not one more cookie!

The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible. (Thomas Hardy) Ponder Hardy's thoughts for just a moment and you will understand why willpower alone seldom keeps us from eating the candy bar within our fridge! Now, the one still at the grocer's counter is a little harder to actually enjoy, is it not? The nearer the 'evil', the harder it is to avoid - it is within our path and we find things harder to resist when they are in our path!

So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)

My BFF was sharing about her father's desire to lose a little weight, so he has 'divested' himself of some of the goodies he had 'stockpiled' in the house. The box of chocolates found a new home far away. The rice krispy treats made someone else very happy. The cookies blessed another's family. I imagine the purpose of the 'divestiture' is to ensure the temptation for the 'evil' of those sweets is further away than the cupboard! As long as they remained, there was difficulty avoiding them. When they were gone, there could still exist a 'yearning', but the ability to satisfy the yearning was much harder.

Sometimes the hardest thing for us to remember is that temptation is not all that powerful when we remove the thing from our midst! If it becomes harder and harder for us to ever 'acquire' whatever it is we are tempted with, it is less likely we will 'give into' that temptation. If our 'temptation' is able to be fulfilled by what we eat, we stop bringing that object into our home. If our 'temptation' is acquired and fed through what we view on the TV, then we disconnect from the cable company's feed. If it is indulged through the associations we keep, we begin to change those associations.

The opposite of evil is good - most would agree. Today, many have framed evil in such a way as to believe there are 'degrees of evil' - some not so bad and others at the opposite end of the spectrum. The problem with this reasoning is that what we 'tolerate' as a 'less offensive' evil today will become the norm tomorrow. The evil we once avoided becomes a 'tolerable' or even 'acceptable' evil. It has been brought close enough to begin to tempt us to accept it and believe it is 'okay'. This is shaky ground, my friends, for evil of all types is to be resisted (avoided at all cost).

To resist - give yourselves to God in humility - admitting freely the pull toward the temptation that we feel. God isn't caught off-guard by our admittance of the 'pull'. In fact, he knows temptation exists and he has provided a pathway of escape, but we have to seek his assist to walk that path! Just sayin!

Invitation NOT accepted

Oscar Wilde once quipped, "I can resist everything except temptation." He may have more telling in his words than we may first want to admit! Temptation can give the lot of us a huge headache - if not for the temptation we pursue, then for those that others pursue that affect us in the end. We don't commonly speak about temptation in our communications today, especially if it will 'meddle' in our personal business. We might admit we are tempted to eat something we should not, or to make a purchase that is probably not the wisest. Temptation is really to be lured into something, so it is more common than we think. It might begin with a little bit of what we call "fascination" with something we really should not indulge in, but then it becomes something that we have to put a great deal of effort into if we are to resist it. Why is it that the simplest "fascination" can have such a big "pull" on us? Simply put, it is because we don't learn to manage the invitation.

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it. (I Corinthians 10:13)

We probably all get tons of advertisement each week in the mail. In fact, if it was not for the advertisement, our mail service might just go out of work! The desire behind the ads is to entice us into the various eating establishments, shops, and businesses who create those advertisements. Once they get us into their establishment, or making contact with their company, they hope to "hook us" into buying their product or service - by the offer they promise in their advertisement. You probably have heard it said that nothing is as good as it looks. Over the years, I have come to understand the meaning of those words. I have been "hooked" a few times too many into believing the "lure" of the thing as it was advertised, not as I should have known it would be!

In our daily walk, we have opportunities to both embrace or resist temptation. It could be as simple as saying we won't eat that extra serving of carbs at lunch, or it might be as complicated as resisting the urge to be involved in gossip in the workplace, or resisting the offer of an illicit affair. Regardless of the temptation (the lure), there is a corresponding struggle of the mind and will that ensures. We all probably understand the need for discipline and the need for taking accountability for our actions. Well, dealing with temptation requires accountability - the purposeful behavior that says we take responsibility for our actions.

Instead of blaming those advertisers for misleading me, I need to own up to the fact that I did not do my research well on what was being offered. Instead of blaming another for my behavior, I need to own up to the fact that I am entirely responsible for my response, my investment of energies, and my heart motivation in doing whatever it was that I did! Whenever I blame another for my action, I am denying that a need exists in my life - that need is to be free of the enticement's pull! I might actually want to make another responsible for my behavior - but we probably all know very well that the other person really does not make us behave a certain way. They may elicit a certain response - but WE have the ability to either respond or walk away!

It is always amazing to me whenever I hear someone telling me that I don't know what they are going through. I may not have walked EXACTLY the same steps that other person is walking, but if the truth be known, the steps we all walk are pretty similar. It is an age-old argument that we want to have a unique set of reasons for why we pursue what it is we pursue - like no one else could possibly be dealing with the same stuff we are. If we isolate our temptation as unique to us - we don't reach out to others for aid in resisting it! So, whatever it is that is enticing you to compromise your stand today, just know this....you are not alone! Your enticement is not unique to just you. If you were honest with the other individual that God has placed in your life to walk alongside you, you might just find out how "common" your temptation is! No temptation is greater than God's ability to overcome! In fact, it is already a done deal! Just sayin!