James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ!-

Temptation Temptation!

^"13When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; ¹⁴but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. ¹⁵Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
¹⁶Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. ¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ¹⁸He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created."
 

Oh please, read the above verses again, they are full of application for daily living! Why? Because we live with temptation all day longggggg! And it is never God who is tempting us! I know when I first became a Christian, I thought the temptations were God testing me, boy was I wrong!!! look at verse 13 again. Satan and his workers have this responsibility and they are not lazy when it comes to tempting us. We all have our weak spots and even though satan cannot make you sin, he can tempt you to sin, and does!

Verse 14 says that we are dragged away and enticed by our own evil desire. Think about that, dragged away and enticed! The idea is that we may not be easy but the enticing keeps us moving in the wrong direction, away! Away from what? away from the will of God, away from His glory! And where do we end up? look at verse 15 and please understand that sin can ultimately destroy you! Death is destruction. 

Let me give you an example of how this could happen. Suppose your weakness is booze. You like to go to the bar and have a few. You come out of the bar thinking that you have your act together, you think your fine and can drive home. On the way, you miss a red traffic light and hit a car. In the car are a man, his wife and two children. One or maybe all of them die and you die too! All because of a few drinks, and it happened because satan is the one who put the booze in your mind to began with. Look around, the advertisement is everywhere. Satan loves to connect booze with things like sex, fun, social life or a must with the football game!

Please remember this, always look for the way out and beg God for the strength to take it! Read this verse and be free.... 1 Corinthians 10:13
^"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. "
 

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11