Overcoming Temptation

Mark Twain once quipped, "I can resist anything except temptation."  Jesus warned his disciples, "Watch and pray so that you don't fall into temptation. For the spirit is willing but the body is weak" (Mark 14:38).  In The Lord's Prayer, we find the petition, "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil one" (Matt 6:13).  Obviously, temptation is nothing to play with - as in the old adage, "If you play with fire you might get burned."

And yet, the married business man chooses to have an "innocent" lunch date with the "attractive" new secretary.  The young mother, struggling with her weight chooses to stop at the pastry shop after leaving the gym "just for coffee."  Ever go to the animal shelter "just to look at the puppies?"

The problem with temptation is us. We're not watching out for it, we're not resisting its pull with active prayer and we're not fleeing from it. We kid ourselves thinking, "I can handle this."  Or we flirt with the notion "just this once won't really hurt."  Too often, we play with the fire and then wonder how we got burned.

You've heard the stories of the alcoholic who keeps a bottle in the cabinet or the nicotine addict who keeps a pack of cigarettes in his pocket - both thinking it will steel their resolve and both falling prey to the temptation. They fell because they we walking near the edge to begin with.

To watch and pray is to pay attention to our surroundings and when alerted to temptation, then resist, retreat or remove. We can resist by bringing the Holy Spirit along side in fervent prayer. We can retreat by turning our back on it and moving toward what is good instead (the business man could have phoned his wife instead of taking his attractive secretary to lunch, for instance).  We can remove by getting cable out of the house if TV causes you to stumble or empty your house of junk food if it trips you up.

Consider this: Every time you are tempted to do wrong, you have an opportunity to choose right. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus and make him Lord of our lives daily and instead of allowing the lure of temptation to reel us in, choose rather to look for "what is pure, noble, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy" (Phil 4:8).

Jus' Sayn.