Friday, November 20, 2009

When, not If


Jas 1:13 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:
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

Notice the certainty of the matter of temptation. Verse 13 says "when", again, the same in verse 14.

There is no sin in being tempted. Our Lord Himself faced strong temptation in the wilderness. Hebrews tells us He was tempted in every point (of the law) like we are, yet He never succumbed to it.

The old way of explaining temptation is that you have no control of a bird circling far above your head. However, when you allow that same bird to build a nest in your hair, you have allowed things to progress to far.
We must never allow temptation to build a nest. Resist the devil, we are told, and he will flee from us. Temptations can give way to thoughts, if we allow them to, then actions will follow.

Well, there are one or two things we can do about the bird flying over head, we can go inside or we can grab the shotgun and blast it out of the air. I like that option.

That brings us to the "whens," not "ifs" of today. When temptation hovers, are you going to allow it to build a nest in the fertile soil of you mind or move away from it or blast that vulture from the sky?

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