Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
Years ago God was working mightily in my heart and I saw a vision of myself. I looked like a pretzel all twisted up and the Father began to untwist and straighten me. And then I saw an iron and an ironing board. The Father placed me on the ironing board and I was being ironed. He was straightening out my thinking. Since that day, God has continually worked in my life freeing me from religious and worldly strongholds in my mind and transforming my twisted thinking.
One of the areas of twisted thinking that I suffered with had to do with temptation. It seemed whenever I was tempted the enemy would seize the opportunity and heap condemnation upon me. He was riding condemnation into my heart through the various temptations we all experience in this life.
When God began to straighten out my thinking about temptation I was able to not only more effectively deal with the temptation, but also shut the door on much of the condemnation. Here is some of what He showed me.
1. Temptation does not originate with the devil. It originates with us. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed (James 1:14). Temptation is a normal part of our lives in this world.
2. Temptation itself is not sinning. Jesus Himself was tempted in every way (Heb. 4:15)! Yet invariably when we are tempted the enemy will subtly assault us with thoughts of condemnation as if we had already stumbled into error. Agreeing with those thoughts is the first step toward the desire becoming sin (James 1:15).
3. Desire does not mean an evil desire, just desire. Almost all basic desires we have are God given. The desire for sex, food, recreation and comfort are God given for our body’s well being. The desire for love, acceptance and success are God given for our emotional wholeness. The desire for spirituality is God given for the completeness and fulfillment of our purpose and destiny in life.
4. The way we attempt to fulfill our God given desires is where temptation enters the picture. When we are being tempted we are being offered a counterfeit method to fulfill our God given desires. When we give in to the counterfeit method we are in essence acknowledging we do not believe that God’s method of fulfilling those desires works or it is taking too long. It is not the desire for a thing that turns it into sin. It is the desire to receive those things apart from God that turns them into sin (2 Peter 1:4).
5. The thing that makes temptation so condemning is that we want the thing we are being tempted to do. If we didn’t desire it there would be no temptation. So we feel condemned for wanting something that twisted thinking tells us God is displeased with. And consequently we feel God is displeased with us. We feel like failures. Our conscience is defiled, our faith falters and we can’t face God (Heb. 10:21-23). Instead of turning to the throne of grace for mercy and help (Heb. 4:16) we run from God, try to go at it alone and eventually we give up and stumble.
Many Blessings, BW