“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Cor 10:13)
We all have areas in our life where we face temptation. My struggle will not be your struggle. At times it becomes very frustrating to live the Christian life because it sometimes we give into the temptation. That often starts a vicious cycle in our personal lives.
The cycle begins with regret. We beat ourselves up for falling into temptation and committing the sin we promised we would never do again. Then we earnestly pray for God to take the temptation away from us. Or to help us endure the next time it comes our way. For a few days or maybe even a weeks we feel successful because we haven’t given into temptation but eventually we give into the temptation again. When this happens, the voice of doubt begins to creep inside our minds.
“If you were a strong Christian, you wouldn’t keep struggling like this”. Or “I might as well just give in because I am always going to struggle”. These are just a few of the statements that come to mind when believers earnestly try to stop sinning. Then the cycle continues and the Christian lives defeated.
What if I told you that the way we stand strong in the face of temptation is not to fight it but to stand and let Christ do the work. (Eph 6:10-18) We defeat temptation by running to Christ and loving him more than we love the world.
“The way to conquer sin is not by working hard to change our deeds, but by trusting Jesus to change our desires.” – David Platt
Are you struggling with sin in your life? If you are, examine how you are trying to get victory over that sin. Is it all about you and your self will? Or are you pursuing Christ more than the world?
Defeating temptation is done by listening to the call of Jesus when he said “Follow Me.” When we love Christ more than the world our temptations will begin to disappear. It will not be easy at first but when we are full of Christ, nothing else has room to get in our way.
