James 1:12–18
Loving
God Under Trials
12 kBlessed is the
man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will
receive lthe crown of life mwhich the Lord has promised to
those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted,
“I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself
tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn
away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, nwhen desire has conceived, it
gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, obrings forth death.
16 Do
not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 pEvery
good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father
of lights, qwith
whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. 18 rOf His
own will He brought us forth by the sword of truth, tthat we
might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.
When people say that they struggle with “demons” or “vices”
that they wish they didn’t have and yet expect God to just take them away, it
goes against scripture. Some have said “if I wasn’t supposed to be doing this
then remove it from me”. There may be some out there that say God caused them
to be tempted.
The Lord cannot tempt you! Only your desires can
tempt you, you can’t be tempted if you didn’t already have a desire to partake
in whatever it is. That would be like ‘tempting’ a millionaire with five
dollars…there is no point because they already have that and then some so it
isn’t a desire. However if you used to like to smoke cigarettes and you have
stopped for 3 months and then one day someone lights one up next to you and
then that person asks you if you would like one, and you say yes….that’s on
you! Not on God. As long as those desires are there, there will be temptation
in those areas.
Temptations always lead to sin-now were aren’t
talking about being “tempted” to eat a slice of cake even though you’re on a
diet-temptations are those things that if you do it you have already set
yourself up for a sinful course, like stealing a dollar from a tip jar leads to
stealing twenty dollars to possibly stealing a cd from a store and so on. There
is progression that takes place, it’s up to you to nip it in the bud after you
have fallen into the temptation and repent of it and make a conscious effort to
not do it again. It may take time to do, but STILL do it!
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