Have you ever heard someone say, “The devil made me do it”? Sometimes the devil gets a lot of the blame when we don’t want to admit our own guilt. And sometimes our momma (or spouse, or kids, or boss, etc…) gets blamed too. But the reality is that the devil didn’t make you do it and neither did your momma! The enemy may try to tempt you, but he has no power to force your hand. That decision to act on temptation solely belongs to you.

James 1:13-15, “No one is to say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it has run its course, brings forth death.”

There is a common misconception that once you place your faith and trust in God and receive salvation, you no longer become tempted or susceptible to temptation. That’s a lie. Salvation does not exclude temptation from your life.

James makes it very clear: We can’t blame God for our temptation. God didn’t make you do it, nor did He tempt you to do anything. We often want to blame Him so that we don’t have to take responsibility for our own actions.

According to the verses above from James 1, God is not the source of temptation. But I think it’s also helpful here to identify what God does give us.  James 1:5 tell us He is the source of wisdom. Verse 17 of that same chapter says He is the source of good things and good gifts. And verse 18 tells us He is the source of truth.

We often form our own opinions about temptation, but the truth is that temptation is not a sin. The issue is what we do with it. Even Jesus was tempted, yet He was without sin (Heb. 4:15). Christian maturity is not the absence of temptations, but rather the ability not to take the bait! We must always remember that we have a choice. These key words are found in the beginning of James 1:14: “each one”. Each one of us has an individual responsibility to make the right choice when we are met with temptation.

Temptation has a life cycle that is diagrammed for us in James 1. If you flashback to science class in school, you may remember the lifecycle of anything as pictured by a circle of arrows – each item indicating what comes next in the process of events. For temptation, according to James 1, it looks like this:

We must employ self-control to prevent being “carried away” by our own desires. We must also prepare ourselves prior to the encounter. You need to have a battle plan of action to know how you are going to handle temptation. God gives us this battle plan in His Word. He tells us to put on His armor (Eph. 6:10-18). He shows us how to flee temptation (Gen. 39:12). He tells us to pray for deliverance from temptation. And His Word tells us He always provides a way of escape, so we are without excuse (1 Corinthians 10:13). He will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to handle. So, instead of being drawn away in a moment of temptation, we can prepare by being drawn to God. Draw near to Him and His Word. Surround yourself with godly influences – people who motivate you to press on in the good works of the Lord.

 The world often tries to diminish sin by giving it other names like “mistake”, “slip-up”, or “white lie”, and the enemy plays right along and tries to persuade us that temptation is not serious or potentially dangerous. Temptation is very important to the enemy. The enemy has one goal in mind: getting you to fall! The enemy is subtle, alluring, patient when he needs to be, pushy when he has to be, and he knows our weaknesses. He studies our responses and reactions to external stimuli. His goal is to take us out of the race. He wants us to be rendered useless and inefficient for the Lord’s work.

See, it’s not just that you are “dragged away” by your desires (James 1:14). It’s that you are dragged away and enticed, and this most often begins in your mind. This is why Paul warns us not even to “think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16) and “make no provision for the flesh” (Rom. 13:14).

Joshua 7:21 provides us a great illustration of this temptation and sin cycle. Joshua presses Achan to confess his sin and Achan replies:

“When I saw among the spoils a beautiful robe from Shinar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I wanted them and took them; and behold, they are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

Did you catch the key words? “When I saw…”, “then I wanted them…” (Achan coveted them), “and took them.” It’s the life cycle stages of temptation found in the Old Testament. We can see this played out elsewhere in the Bible, for example with Eve and the serpent in the garden of Eden, and with David and Bathsheba.

One reason we are susceptible to falling for temptation is the misconception that we are able to give ourselves good gifts, or that other people, places, and things can give us good gifts. But James gives a warning to his fellow brothers and to us not to be deceived.

James 1:16 says, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.” James says, “don’t be tricked!”

The very next verse, James 1:17, shows us that we are not the source of good gifts. Good gifts come from God, the “Father of lights, in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” The same cannot be said of Satan.

So we are warned in God’s Word, “don’t be deceived!” When Satan tempts us, He wants to distract us from the truth found in God’s Word. One of the things that catches our affections when we are tempted is that we believe what is being offered to us is something good. It looks really good, and so we are falsely led to believe it is going to be (and end up) really good. But here in James 1, we learn that the gifts that really and truly are good and perfect come from our Heavenly Father. We need to pay attention and refuse to listen to the deceptive words of the enemy. Instead, listen to the true and powerful words of God.

God’s Word shows us what the lust of man brings forth: sin and death. Here, we read what the will of our good and true God brings: Life! God chose to give us life (James 1:18). “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth” – of His will; His own choosing. How did He choose to give us life? By the “Word of truth.”  And why did He choose to do it? So we would be the “first fruits.”

We can see God’s goodness in our salvation, as He initiated our salvation and brought us forth to spiritual life by His Word of truth, so that to His glory, we might be first fruits of His harvest. Stay strong, sisters in Christ! God has our greater good in mind. He is not trying to deprive us of something “good”; He is preparing us for the best that is yet to come!