Temptation

Our confidence in overcoming temptation is in the faithfulness of the Lord who answers the petition He taught us to pray “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”
Christ seeks to lead us out of patterns that will make us vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. That’s why He confronts us about our preemptive hugging of the center stage. He seeks to deliver us from habits of control because He knows we can’t pull it off alone. When we try and then find we need power, He knows that Satan will be ready to offer us false power.
Satan’s power comes at very high cost: his methods and his control cause a frightening spiraling descent into power tactics. But at any point we can call, and Christ will deliver us.
Not only has our Lord been through all the temptations we face and not only does He know every device of the tempter, He alone has power and authority over Satan. In the power struggle between good and evil in the spiritual world Christ always wins. The Father has given that authority to Christ.
We must call for aid. As has been stressed, He waits until we want His deliverance. His ongoing care to keep us out of temptation is freely given. He meets us at the pass erecting “Do Not Enter” signs on certain paths. But even as we push His sign aside and get into trouble He will help us even then in response to our cry for help.
The same Lord who erects the “No Entry” sign also places an “Only Way Out” sign in the jungle of defeat when we get lost. Christ’s help is the expression of the faithfulness of God that Paul touted with such gratitude. No temptation has overtaken you except as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it (I Corinthians 10:13). The name of Christ is the way out. Christ delivers.

Common Human Temptation

All our temptations are but diminutive demonstrations of our desire to hug center stage. They are beguiling enticements to insure power, to play God, king of the mountain, lord of our own lives.
Try that on for size. Think of the temptations you have had in just the past years. Didn’t they involve side-stepping some spiritual or moral law of God? Start with the basics. Begin with the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods.” All the rest of the commandments focus on the danger of breaking that fundamental spiritual law. We can make a false god out of controlling our use of time, people, the family, truth, sex or things.
The producer and director of that production is Satan. He is a fallen angel who tried to hug center stage. Having lost his place in glory, he is busy recruiting and casting power-hungry people in roles that usurp the spotlight in their life story. He delights in getting us to seek the glory rather than glorify Christ. But center stage is where we get the worst case of feeling at loose ends because we cannot cope with the pressure. It’s inevitable; we were never meant to be there in the first place.
Temptation to get and keep control are distracting loose ends. They keep pulling us away from our central purpose of glorifying God and doing what we know He has called us to do. And now the central question: Is Christ also Lord of these loose ends of temptation? Always remember when you are being tempted that you are seeking to hug the center stage. Stop! You’re not the star. Christ is.