Handling Temptation

^{Matthew 10:8}Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

Jesus is instructing his disciples here. One of the instructions is to cast out devils. According to the New Covenant model, Jesus could not grant these powers to his disciples unless he had received them from the Father. Understanding when Jesus received these powers from the Father, and how he received them, gives us insight into how we can too, can receive these powers.

^{Matthew 17:18} And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. ¹⁹ Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? ²⁰ And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. ²¹ Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

Jesus cast out a demon that his disciples were not able to cast out. In verse 21, Jesus told them why they could not cast them out: that kind could not be cast out but by prayer and fasting. When did Jesus fast?

^{Matthew 4:1}Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. ²And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was an hungred. ³And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. ⁴But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. ⁵Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, ⁶And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. ⁷Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. ⁸Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; ⁹And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. ¹⁰Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

After the Spirit had led Jesus into the wilderness, he fasted forty days. At the end, he withstood the temptation and cast the devil out – Get the hence, Satan. The Father loved Jesus by giving him power to cast out demons.

^{Matthew 16:23} But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Jesus cast the devil out of Peter. Could it be that this what empowered Peter to cast out devils? The point is, the way Jesus obtained this power was to withstand the temptation using scripture, not to argue with the devil, but to announce his position, the scripture upon which he would base his actions.

^{Matthew 7:5} Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Before you can cast the devil out of someone else, you must first cast the devil out of yourself.

When facing temptation, the most effective strategy I have found is the one Jesus used when he faced temptation. Each time Jesus was tempted by the devil, Jesus countered with his decision, the counsel he would follow from the scripture. Jesus was not in a debate with the devil, basing his decision on who had the better argument. Jesus’ response was a statement of his position. He stood on the Word of God. 

After I learned this, I remember being tempted by the devil while I was at work. It was a Saturday and no one else was there. When faced with temptation, I decided to test this strategy. I stated my position, quoting a verse, and went on about my business. Later, I realized that the temptation had disappeared. It had worked too well. At that point in my life, I had been enjoying the temptation.

I have tried accountability groups and they seem to work. When you are trying to hold the other person accountable, you feel obligated to walk the walk and avoid the hypocrisy. By holding the other person accountable you are really holding yourself accountable. I found Jesus’ approach to be more effective. You can’t always bring your accountability partner to the mountain with you.

I can tell when I am being summoned to sin. I can recognize when the thoughts are not my own. The verse that I stand upon is Romans 6:1, What shall we say then, shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? God forbid. I continue to quote further verses until my attention turns to the task at hand. I think the devil gets sick of this verse because he doesn’t bother me anymore.

^{Romans 6:1}What shall we say then, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

The thing that is interesting is that, although I understood this as a rhetorical question, I could not make sense of it, yet it still worked. Only recently has this verse made sense to me, so I will share my findings.

^{Romans 5:20}Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

Romans 6:1 is in response to Romans 5:20, but how can we explain 5:20 in a way that makes sense of 6:1?

^{Luke 7:41}There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. ⁴²And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? ⁴³Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou has rightly judged. ⁴⁷Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven: for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

The last phrase of Jesus, “but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little,” explains why one could reasonably conclude that if we are forgiven more then we would love more. Therefore we should make sure we have much to be forgiven. Paul dismisses this logic as being faulty.

Read The Case for Grace for a more complete understanding of grace.

More on Temptation

^{Romans 8:13}For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

The prescribed method for deliverance from the lust of the flesh is to mortify the deeds of the body through the Spirit. In fact, this is the only method that achieves the intended result: ye shall live. This approach takes self-control, but a directed, intentional and specific type of self-control. This method is proactive; you don’t wait until you are faced with temptation. So how does one go about mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit?

^{Romans 8:5}For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

This approach deals with your thought life. What occupies your mind when you are driving? When you are sleeping? Fill your mind with the things of the Spirit. Displace your other thoughts with the scriptures. Have you ever memorized a chapter of the Bible? You may think that memorization is not your thing, but the worse you are at memorization the better off you are. The point is not to memorize scripture. The objective is to mind the things of the Spirit. If you can memorize easily, that may become your goal. The real goal is meditation.

We are all experts when it comes to meditation. What do you think about when someone offends you? You play the sequence over and over in your head, reviewing every detail, looking at the offense from every angle, considering every possible response you could have made, but didn’t.

Minding the things of the Spirit uses those same muscles using the scriptures as the focal point. Memorizing a chapter is the first step, although you should not wait until you have memorized the whole chapter to begin meditating; you can start as soon as you have the first phrase. Take that verse, even that phrase, and run it through the movie house.

If you cherry-pick verses instead of using contiguous verses, you lose context. You are not getting enough of the story to adequately meditate. You don’t have enough of the pieces of the puzzle to put it together. Again the purpose is not to memorize, but to mortify the deeds of the body and achieve life.

If you are able to escape temptation another way, you can celebrate your amazing self control, but you will have missed the goal – eternal life.

The first chapter I memorized was Romans 6. When I could quote verses one through 23, my life had been changed. My life was changed even though I had not understood any of it. That tells me that the scriptures are not informative, but transformative. That also tells me that the process does not depend on whether I arrive at the proper interpretation for the magic to happen. I was minding the things of the Spirit.

King James Preferred

I prefer the King James Version. Other versions seem like predigested food. They preprocessed the narrative to present their opinion of what the scriptures say. That provides a layer of obfuscation that is difficult to untangle. The language of King James makes it more difficult to understand, but provides better material for meditation. My favorite example of misinterpretation provided by other versions is Philippians 2:5.

^{Philippians 2:5}Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: ⁶Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

Compare that to every other version that goes down the NIV rabbit hole:

^{Philippians 2:5}In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: ⁶Who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.

You can meditate on the NIV version for a lifetime and not come out with anything coherent. All the other versions also missed the point, putting Jesus as the subject of the robbery, not the object. Jesus had everything. Jesus lost everything, but did not consider himself the victim of a robbery. That is the mindset we are to put on. Meditating on any other version would somehow give us the mindset that we should consider ourselves equal with God. Yikes!

I recommend Romans 6 as a good starting point. There is a treasure trove there to keep you minding the things of the Spirit for a lifetime. If that is the only chapter you memorize, you will have plenty to think about for a very long time. If you think you already understand Romans 6 because you heard a sermon on it or read a wonderful commentary, trust me, you don’t. Remember the goal is not understanding, the goal is eternal life.

How to Know

^{1 John 2:3}And hereby do we know that we know him, if we keep his commands.

Identify your besetting temptation; the one that persists. Use that temptation as a metric to measure how well you know Jesus. Stop attempting to conquer that temptation using self control. Rather, begin meditating on the scriptures. How much meditation is enough? When you wake up one day wondering what happened to that temptation that has perpetually nagged you. It just went away on its own. As long as the temptation persists, you need to increase the dosage. Meditation starts with memorization of continuous verses.

And just remember, his commandments are not the Father’s commandments.

Lead Us Not into Temptation

^{James 1:13}Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

God does not tempt us.

^{Mark 1:12}And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.

But the Spirit may lead us into temptation, as he did with Jesus.

The Lord’s Prayer directs us to pray that God would not lead us into temptation, but that does not guarantee that he won’t. When God leads us into temptation, it is for a purpose. That purpose is that we would conform to the image of Christ, relying on the Spirit, that as he has led us to, he would also lead us through. Walking through the valley is like walking on water. To stay afloat we need to keep our eyes on Jesus and not rely on the power of our own strength.

^{Hebrews 12:2}Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus is the author of our faith. He leads us into temptation. We consider it joy, an opportunity to lean on the Spirit and receive his love. When we successfully conquer that temptation, we complete the groundwork of receiving the grace.

Jesus is the finisher of our faith. As we minister to others in their time in the wilderness, Jesus is also there to fulfill the law written upon our heart. This is also done in the power of the Spirit.

I do not have to have been addicted to drugs, and successfully conquered the addiction to help others with their drug addiction, but I do need to have walked through the wilderness hand in hand with Jesus. We all have wilderness experiences that we count as joy.