Prayer is Power for Overcoming Temptation

God cares that temptation attacks us where we are vulnerable. A mistake Christians make is believing they are beyond the cutting edge of temptation. Temptation doesn’t often confront us with violent aggression but may shrewdly enter our thoughts like a gliding butterfly to catch us unprepared to battle its power and influence.

Jesus warned us to watch and pray because temptation lurks in darkness and the light. He tells us to guard our vulnerabilities and our strengths. But how? Prayer is the channel God uses as a means for his power to flow to us to provide an escape from temptation’s lure.

God cares when you are tempted. Remember Jesus was tempted as you are, but he did not submit to its power. He is qualified to deliver you from temptation’s control and to heal you from the wounds it inflects. God does care when you are tempted, so be on guard and ask him for power to resist and overcome its appeal.  

__________ 

“Watch and pray. Then you won’t fall into sin when you are tempted. The spirit is willing. But the body is weak.”

~Mark 14:38 New International Reader’s Version

____________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week. 

Flirting with Disaster

The allure of temptation may be direct or subtle. Satan is always on the prowl seeking to find the vulnerable and unsuspecting. Satan doesn’t portray temptation as objectionable and unsightly, but as inviting, desirable and beautiful. Christians need not go out looking for the challenge of temptation. It will find you. 

There are individuals, however, who seek temptation for the thrill of its challenge. Samson demonstrated this by intentionally pursuing Philistine women as love objects, knowing they would betray him. He also played with the temptation of revealing the secret of his strength, believing he could somehow escape the clutches of death. 

Samson persisted in flirting with disaster until he was eventually pulled into its snare. God gave us Samson’s story because each of us is vulnerable to temptation, but Jesus gives us a way to avoid falling into the pit. "Watch and pray so you will not fall into temptation." Be alert and wise to keep a vigil for God's help and deliverance.  

_____________________

 Dear friend, don’t let a bad example influence you. Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do what is right prove that they are God’s children. Those who continue in evil prove that they are far from God.

~3 John 11 The Living Bible

______________________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week.