When opposing teams prepare to face each other each in American football, they study video of their opponent, seeking to find any weaknesses that they can attack or exploit, so that they can emerge victorious on game day.
Maybe the quarterback on one of the teams is hampered by a sore hamstring and cannot move very quickly to evade a defender rushing at him. The opponent will use this weakness against him, and attack it, consistantly rushing men at him to try to cause the quarterback to have to move around on his sore leg, and eventually make a mistake.
When a lion goes out searching for an animal to eat, they usually go and find a group of animals and from that group they often pick out the weakest one to try to attack. Not the strongest, but the weakest, the most vulnerable, and the easiest to kill.
Similarily, the when the devil tries to tempt someone and try to get them to fall to sin, he will attack that person where they are the weakest, the most likely to succumb to that temptation and sin.
“Temptation” is the desire to do something, especially something wrong or unwise.
I know that I can relate to this: as a child, when someone hits you, what is the response that we feel? The desire to retaliate, and hit them back.
That feeling is us being tempted by the devil. The desire to do something that is wrong and we shouldn’t do. That is what the devil does, is try to cause someone to sin.
The devil will try to attact you where you are the weakest, and he even tempted (or tried to tempt) the Lord Jesus in Matthew 4.
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But 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.” Matthew 4:1-4
The devil also proceeded to tempt Jesus a couple other ways, but look at what he started with. After 40 days and nights without food, Jesus was hungry, and the devil attempted to use that to try to get the Lord to fall to temptation. Jesus resisted the devil, and overcame.
And that is what James wrote in James 4:7,
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
On our own, without Christ, we are weak, and vulnerable to temptations and sin. That is why we pray in the Lord’s prayer, lead us not into temptation. We are asking the Lord to make us strong, and to help deliver us from those things which are tempting to us.
When we resist the devil, we are overcoming the traps and snares that he has laid out to try to trip us, to make us fall. And we can know that we CAN overcome those temptations, because God will not let us be tempted above that we are able to handle.
“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13
But just like a muscle on your body, when you exercise it, what happens? It becomes stronger. When you first start your muscles might only be able to curl a 20 pound dumbbell a few times before tiring out, but as you continue working it, consistantly lifting those weights, the stronger your muscles will become.
When we are tempted, our faith is being tried, and we have that opportunity to make it even stonger by overcoming temptations, whatever form they may take.
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations;
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” James 1:2-4
Through Jesus, we can be overcomers. Just as Jesus overcame the devil in the wilderness, we can do the same thing. We can do all things through Christ which strengthens us!
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 