Temptation is something we all have to deal with; even Jesus was tempted.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”4 But he answered, “It is written,
“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
So, how do you deal with temptation? We can learn a lot from looking at how Jesus dealt with temptation. When He was tempted, He responded with the Word of God. He was quoting the words Moses spoke to the people of Israel to remind them of the lessons they had learned in the wilderness.
3 “And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. “
Each time Jesus was tempted, He quoted the Word of God as His only response. It is hard for us to respond the way Jesus did to temptation when we don’t know the Word of God. We need to not only read it daily, but study, meditate on it and memorize it.
How well do you know the word of God? Would you be able to respond to temptation the way Jesus did by quoting His Word? We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to avoid temptations or prevent ourselves from falling into temptation. For most of us, we find ourselves committing the same sins over and over again. Maybe we need a new approach to dealing with those familiar temptations by simply responding with the Word of God.
Make an effort to spend time reading His Word each day. If you are not sure where to start, I would suggest the book of James. It is a short book that is all about how to live your life in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. You will find words you can use when tempted and may just find yourself being convicted of things you didn’t even realize were sin while reading it.
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- Scripture from http://www.biblegateway.com
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