Temptations!!!!

Temptations!

When you are tempted don’t ever say, “God is tempting me,” for God is incapable of being tempted by evil and he is never the source of temptation. James 1:13‭ TPT

God does not tempt. This is an eternal statement that man has tried over and over to prove wrong. We have propounded arguments to claim that temptations are from God, and we have simply abdicated our responsibility when it comes to the choices that we make. 

First, temptations will come; that is settled. As long as we are clothed in this mortal body, we are subject to the limitations and weaknesses that sin brought. The same old attraction: become like God - that the devil came with then - is still the same old trick we fall to today. We then convince ourselves that we cannot overcome simply because we are human, forgetting that the power to overcome isn't in us, but is of God. Tell me, why would God provide strength and help to overcome something that He authors?

The next verse after today's extract tells us where these temptations come from: Instead it is each person’s own desires and thoughts that drag them into evil and lure them away into darkness. James 1:14 TPT. Since the fall of man, we have opened our lives to devilish manipulations, and then, just as Adam and Eve did, we are able to rationalise and explain away our own faults. However, as you know, God didn't accept the rationalization then, and each was duly punished. 

God may allow evil, but He is also the God called good. Through sin, evil has come into the world, and for as long as man is under the influence of the world, he is prone to temptations and evil desires. The way of escape is by total surrender to the God who gives grace that brings victory over temptations. God may allow trials and tough times to come your way, because He wants to strengthen your faith, but He does not deliberately set up a man to fall or fail. 

Check your heart: who reigns in there? The output of your life will be determined by the inner Presence. Who lives in there? His strength is free and available, if you will just ask Him. His time of favour is here.