by Jacob Ninan
Jesus said that it was inevitable that things would happen that could stumble us (Lk.17:1). When they happen, they could tempt us to do something wrong in order to deal with them. Temptations are a part of our life, and it would be good for us to understand what they are, how they work and how we can deal with them. We feel the temptations inside us because we all have a sinful flesh, and we are all living in a fallen world.
"Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death" (Jas.1:13-15). There is much we can unpack from here. First of all, God is not the one who tempts us, because there is no evil in Him, and He will not lead us towards evil. God may sometimes test us or allow us to go through a trial to find out how we would respond. But we have evil desires dwelling in our flesh which respond to attractions that come before us. A temptation is an idea that creates a strong desire from our flesh attracting us towards various kinds of sinful pleasures or selfish gain. If we agree with this desire, we are making a choice to sin, even though it might not occur to us that we are sinning. Then when we actually do something to follow the direction of the temptation, our sin begins to produce results that will affect us as well as other people.
God has created us with normal and legitimate desires in our body and mind. For example, there is nothing wrong with desiring to eat food or drink to satisfy our needs, or to want to have sexual relations within a marriage. But 'lusts' are strong desires drawing us to go beyond the limits which God has defined for us, by attempting to seek more pleasure and gain for ourselves. If we agree with these lusts, sin gets conceived in our mind, and if we carry out those desires, sin gets born and causes consequences. God warns us that if we sow according to our flesh, we cannot avoid reaping the consequences that will surely follow.
Some people deceive themselves by thinking that it does not matter what happens within their mind as long as they do not do anything externally. So they indulge themselves with imaginations following these lusts. But they are sinful lusts, and they mess up the person's mind and his personality, and later it will cause him problems with other people. If we sin in any way, we cannot get away without consequences.
Let us look at three examples to understand how temptations affect us.
"Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity" (Eph.4:26,27). God gets angry sometimes, and we read about Jesus becoming angry with Pharisees for their hypocritical and callous ways. So, we can see that it is not a sin in itself to feel this emotion called anger. We generally feel angry when our will is crossed by someone or something. In that sense, all negative emotions are like a red light that indicates to us that something is wrong and that we need to deal with it. What this verse says is that if we find ourselves getting angry, make sure that we overcome it before it goes out of control. If we allow it to go out of control, we may end up saying and doing things that we would regret afterwards. We also provide the Devil an opportunity to work in us. We would have experienced that if we continued in anger, we would start getting ideas about what we should say or do against the other person, which could be coming from Satan.
When this verse talks about containing anger before sunset, we must understand that this is a figurative way of saying that we should overcome anger quickly and not allow it to continue. We must also understand that even if manage to restrain ourselves from external action, the anger going on in our mind can turn us bitter, unforgiving, etc., and ultimately lead us to action some other time.
Anxiety is another emotion that can take hold of us at different times, because the future is uncertain. We don't know what will happen, and we don't know what we can do if this or that happens. If we allow ourselves to brood over this, anxiety can make us lose control. But God tells us not to worry about the future, but to trust Him (Matt.6:31), because He is watching over every detail of our life, keeping track of the minutest detail of our life, including the numbers of our hair (Matt.10:30,31). We can overcome anxiety by trusting in God and placing our worries in His hand. But again, that is a choice we have to make when we are tempted with anxious thoughts.
Many suffer much because of their inability to control their sexual desires. We can be provoked by what we see, a thought that comes to our mind or just by being near a person of the opposite sex. Then desire can cause imaginations to run wild in our mind and finally lead to even rape and murder. Look at what happened to King David. The Bible compares the folly of entertaining this desire in our heart to carrying fire in our bosom; we cannot avoid getting burnt. But here again, many people imagine that as long as they do not do anything physically, they are safe. Jesus has clarified this clearly by pointing out that nurturing lust for a woman in our heart is already adultery in God's eyes (Matt.5:27,28). Earlier, this was considered to be a special problem facing men, but nowadays, many women are also falling into this trap. The way out is to make the choice to reject the first thought of sexual desire that comes into the mind, by fearing God and loving God, and not allowing it to grow stronger with indulgence.
God wants us to overcome sin. Jesus came to 'save' us from our sins and not merely to forgive us. God wants us to stop sinning (1Jn.2:1), and we can experience this in a progressive manner. We can experience this salvation only as we choose to deny ourselves and obey God. The original sin that Eve committed was not merely a disobedience to God, but a choice to become independent like God. Now we can experience victory only as we keep choosing to submit to God and obey Him rather than seek our own pleasures.
It is very important for us to understand how exactly we can overcome sin, because many Christians seem to assume that once someone has been born again, he will automatically grow and become like Christ. No, there is a response we have to have to the grace given by God. "Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace" (Rom.6:11-14). Earlier, we used to follow our desires even though they led us to sin, and yielded our body to sin. Now that God has caused us to be born again, given us a new heart and a new spirit, we find a change inside that does not want to sin any more. So we can say that God has made us dead towards sin. But then, we have to stop offering our body to acts of sin and learn, instead, to offer it to God to do righteous things. It is only as we do this that sin stops ruling us, which is what God desires for us. Sanctification is neither automatic nor something we can hand over the entire responsibility to God for by prayer.
Temptations come to us in the form of ideas or thoughts, and they generate feelings from within us. If we have previously indulged in some sinful activities before, it may be that as soon as the idea comes to our mind, feelings and action follow automatically. Now we have to learn to do the right thing, by rejecting sinful ideas before they can become too strong for us. It is our life, and we have to take the responsibility for it and not make excuses. Some people blame their parents or families for what they are, some claim that they cannot change because they were born like that, some imagine that there must be some curse on their family, and some even claim that someone else is doing witchcraft or black magic on them. If we stay with excuses, we cannot overcome our lusts or situations, but if we seek God for victory, He will lead us to it. Even when things look impossible for us, we must not forget that nothing is impossible with God (Lk.18:27). He will teach us and He will give us strength to overcome.
Addiction can be a serious problem, and some types of addiction may require long-term rehabilitation programmes. But whatever effort we may make is worth it if it is going to lead us to experience the freedom Jesus has come to give us.
There are some special errors that some people make. When some sinful thought has come into their mind, they assume that they have already been defiled and defeated, because they expect victory to be an absence of temptations. No, temptations will keep coming, and even godly people who have walked with God for many years talk about temptations that suddenly come to their minds. If we recognise these thoughts as merely temptations and reject them, that is how we can experience victory. Another mistake is to assume that we have become so weak because of past indulgences that we have no chance of victory at all. Then we are forgetting the almighty God who has set out to set us from sin and bondages of every kind.
On the other hand, some people who have begun to experience victory assume that now they have 'arrived' and that they will not have any trouble any more. Then they are unable to explain when temptations attack them from an unexpected angle or some specially powerful storm hits them. God warns us that we must always recognise our vulnerability and cling to Him for strength, and not to assume that we have become strong in ourselves (1Cor.10:12). Satan is also waiting to catch us when we are least expecting him (1Pet.5:8). He knows our psychology only too well, having deceived people for thousands of years.
So let us walk in faith towards God, and also in humility, recognising that without Him we can have no victory, and also that when we lean on Him and do what He tells us, we will not be put to shame. Those who have recognised their own weakness will keep cling to God (Matt.26:41).