In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus encourages us to pray that we would not be “led into temptation, but that God would deliver us from the evil one.” This is an important prayer, but what steps do we need to take to overcome temptation in our lives? Let me suggest a path:1. Recognize the possibility of Temptation. Matthew 24:43 reminds us that forewarned is forearmed. We must never all into the trap of false security that “I will never be tempted.”2. Request Help in Time of Temptation. The Lord told the disciples in Matthew 16:41 to watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. We should ask God to make us sensitive to that moment of awareness, and then choose to take the way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13)3. Resist the Devil and He will Flee from you (James 4:7). To do this we must know the Word of God be willing to be obedient to it. Even if obedience is hard.4. Retreat from certain kinds of temptations. (1 Cor. 10:14; 6:18; 1 Tim. 6:10-11). Wise believers recognize that there are degrees of difference in the perils we face. There is a time to resist and a time to retreat.5. … READ MORE

Are you like me, and hate tests? I love the time of learning in a classroom. Hearing new information, and implementing those principles in my life to make me a better man, and a wiser servant of the Lord. But I hate the tests that are associated with learning. I just want to learn. I have often said that I would just like to audit life. Get all the learning without any of the tests.In our Spiritual development Temptation becomes the tests to find out how we are learning. Don’t you wish you could go through life without it? I don’t know about you, but I long for the day, when everything I do, and everywhere I go can be without the temptation to sin. Sometimes I feel like there is no one who totally understands the struggle that I have with temptation. However, I must understand that I struggle with temptation because of my inner struggle with my flesh, just like everyone else. But there is good news!According to 1 Corinthians 10:13: “There is no temptation that comes upon us but such as is common to man!” These words of reassurance, means that whatever we are going through we … READ MORE

An honorable life is a precarious thing, constructed throughout a lifetime by the bricks of integrity and the mortar of self-control. From the outside, it appears sturdy enough to withstand a tempest. But the weak spots are found within; and it can all come toppling down in one weak moment. An honorable life is not built on the shoulders of any of us, it is built upon the foundation of our Faith in Jesus Christ. We should never be surprised when temptation knocks at the door of the church. That is Satan’s most strategic target. He hammers at the past, the deacons, and the other church leaders, then he hammers at the ordinary Christians who sit in the pews and attempts to seek godly lives. We admire and aspire to be like the first Christians, but they struggled just as we do. For evidence of that we need only open our Bibles to 1 Corinthians. There we find the story of a church plagued by moral failure – a church filled with men and women who didn’t know when to walk away. Here we a pattern for overcoming temptation in chapter 10 verses 12-14. Take time to read and consider … READ MORE