Hello Truth Seekers…David here. Im exited to welcome Pastor Todd Reed to the Truth Infusion Blog Site this month. I know you will receive a blessing as Brother Todd shares the TRUTH about "your temptation and God's faithfulness". Now, sit back and enjoy the fresh bread of God's word….
The story is told of the little girl whose father caught her
eating a chocolate chip cookie after he had specifically instructed her not
to. Her response, “I’m sorry Daddy. I didn’t mean to eat it. I was just smelling of it when my tooth got
caught on it!” Every one of us deals
with temptation of some sort on a daily basis and unfortunately it’s not always
as innocent as chocolate chip cookies.
But God has given us a powerful promise to give us a constant way of
victory over constant temptations in our lives.
1Co 10:13 says “No
temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you to be
tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the
way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.” (ESV)
The
right understanding of this promises strips from us several of our excuses for
our own failures in battling temptation. Excuse #1: “Nobody knows what it’s like to be me!” You
are not alone in your temptation. No matter you’re your circumstance, you are
not the first, nor will you be the last to deal with your specific temptation. Because of that truth, there is someone out
there somewhere whom God has equipped to relate to you and to help you be
accountable. ( 2 Cor. 1)
“But God is faithful,….” This is not
referring to God’s faithfulness to you, but first and foremost to His
faithfulness to Himself. Excuse #2: “I’m not hurting anyone but
myself.” God is still about the business
of making His name glorious in the way He lives out His life through His
children. So His promises in this verse
concerning what He will do to ensure you victory over sin, are for the purpose
of making Himself look good in you! Because He is using you to make a name for
Himself, He “will not let you be tempted
beyond your ability.”
Excuse #3: “God tempted me and I
failed!” James 1:13 tells us that “God is not tempted by eveil, neither does he
tempt any man.” Verse 14 goes on to
say “But every man is tempted when he is
drawn away by his own desire and enticed.”
So much for Excuse #4: “The
devil made me do it!” Yeah right, for
the most part it’s all you! AND, James 1:15 wipes out Excuse #5: “Just a little bit won’t hurt me” when we are taught
that “sin when it is fully grown brings
death.”
But, remember that His promise in 1
Cor. 10:13 is that “he will not let you
be tempted beyond your ability.” On
top of that, Colossians 3:3 says that “your
life is hidden with Christ, in God.”
In other words, if any temptation ever gets to you, it has to get past
God the Father, and God the Son first.
And, when it reaches you, it then has to deal with God the Holy Ghost
inside you! The temptation didn’t slip
past the Father and the Son, so you can rest assured that it is not beyond “your ability” to resist. Isn’t it interesting that the verse says “your ability”. Not your Father’s ability, your pastor’s
ability, your neighbor’s ability……YOUR ability.
Only God knows your ability. Only
God knows where your threshold truly is, and He makes no mistakes. So much for Excuse #6: “I’m not strong enough!”
Well, God is saying something else, but you have to believe Him and act
on it. “Your ability” also refers to your responsibility. It is at this point where your choice comes
in and you alone decide whether you will give in or resist. But God has promised a way out!
He says that “with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape….” This is great news! The problem with temptation is that it
appeals to our desires, so that it looks good to us even if it is not good for
us. We know that what we look at the most, we move towards, like the little
girl and the chocolate chip cookies! So
God is saying that along with any temptation He ever allows to come to us,
there also comes with it a way of escape.
So take your eyes and your attention off of the temptation and focus on
looking for the way of escape! This is beautiful! He has given us a way out! Every time!! The verse goes on to say “that you may be able to endure it.” That word endure implies that this is not
just for short term problems. It doesn’t
take endurance to run from home to first base.
It is distance running that requires endurance. So this promise is not only good for those
pop-up temptations we encounter, but also for those long-term battles that
don’t always go away quickly. So if you
don’t immediately see the way of escape, keep looking. Sometimes it may not be obvious, and it may
take a while and a lot of searching to find it, but all the time while you are
focusing on finding the way of escape, you’re NOT focusing on the temptation! Which brings us to the most beautiful part
of the whole promise!!
While you are looking for the way
of escape, you are looking for God’s promised provision in the right now. In a very real way you are looking TO HIM AND you are looking FOR HIM right where you are! Jesus said, “I am the Way……” Ultimately HE IS the way of escape, and the
whole time you spend looking for the physical way of escape while dealing with
your personal temptation you are really looking for HIM right where you
are. And the most amazing thing happens
in the process while you are looking for Him!! He tells us in 2 Cor. 3:18 that
the more we look at Him, the more we become like Him. So in the process of fleeing from temptation,
in looking for the way of escape, He is causing me to look more and more like
Him, and not just to look more like
Him, but to be more like Him
AND to “BE CHANGED into that same image
from glory to glory!” (2 Cor 3:18)
So hang on to His powerful
beautiful promise. He has given us all a
way of escape from the power of temptation, and from the power of sin, and it
is not mainly about us winning our battle, but it is about Him getting
glory. He is Faithful to Himself, and He
is much more serious about dealing with your sin than you are. So “believe”, “search”, “choose”, “endure”,
and in the process enjoy Him changing you to be like Him.
May God Bless you,
Pastor Todd
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