Temptation – One word, so much meaning

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

¹ I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. ² In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. ³ All of them ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. ⁵ Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

⁶ These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, ⁷ or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” ⁸ And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.

⁹ Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. ¹⁰ And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. ¹¹ These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.

¹² If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. ¹³ The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

To the world, temptation can be an exciting concept. The thought of being ‘forbidden fruit’ can create an intoxicating desire to give in to whatever the temptation is.

For Christians, temptation can also create strong desires. But giving in to temptation disrupts my long-term goal of becoming more like Christ. I want my heart, my thinking, and my behaviour to continue to align more with Jesus throughout my life. So, for me, temptation is not a positive, exciting thing; rather, it is a dangerous thing. The apostle Paul thought so, too. Resisting temptation is such an important concept that he devotes quite a large section of his letter to it here. The first strategy he gives us is to look back at those who have gone before us and see where they’ve failed so we can be warned and not do the same.

However, the statement that jumps out at me most is, “If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall”. I can testify that it’s when I’m feeling that I’ve conquered a temptation that it comes back to bite me. For example, when I think that I’ve mastered my tongue and I’m getting better at being “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19), I will suddenly be poor at listening or get annoyed about something.

The good news is that this passage tells us that we don’t have to fall for temptation. With every test, God will provide a way out so that we can endure. Sometimes the way out can be hard to see in the heat of the moment. But the more I make up my mind to look for that way out, the easier it is to find it and take it.

Dear Lord, it is such a blessing and such a relief to know that you always provide a way out from temptation and testing. Please help me to take the way out that you offer, and resist temptation. Amen

Written by Megan Cornell