Temptations offer terrible trades.
If you are trying to lose weight, a Snickers bar can be very tempting! But eating it will derail your long term goals.
If you are trying to save money, a daily Starbucks run may be tempting! But those daily $5 cups of 10 cent coffee are not where you have budgeted your money to go.
If you are trying to honor God by living in purity, watching pornography on the internet may be tempting! But viewing it is ultimately unsatisfying.
Temptations offer terrible trades. They promise happiness but deliver sorrow. They lure us in with offers of fulfillment but end up leaving us bloated, broke, and full of shame.
All the way back in the Garden of Eden, giving in to temptation gave birth to death as a part of the human experience. Giving in to temptation today has killed relationships, marriages, jobs, and opportunities.
WE KNOW THIS about temptation … and yet it is still so tempting!
There are things that may NOT be a temptation for you, but if we continue to change topics, you will eventually find an area where you are tempted to sin. This is a universal human experience.
So what do you do when temptation comes? How do you resist temptations siren’s song?
As the Apostle Paul once said, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate! Who can set me free from this body of death?” (Romans 7:15, 24)
Did you catch what he said? “WHO” can set me free? Paul knew that He needed more than a plan, he needed a Person. He needed more than sympathy, he needed a Savior!
And so do we.
“Who can set me free from this body of death,” Paul asked. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!,” he answered (Romans 7:24-25).
Jesus Christ is the Person who can be our Savior in the face of temptation. This Sunday at Wildwood Community Church, we will be in the seventh and final part of our “Prepare the Way” sermon series looking at Luke 4:1-13 where we will see Jesus be tempted by the TEMPTER … and NOT SIN! Want to know how to navigate temptation in this life? Curious about the help that is available to us when temptation comes? Join us as we follow Jesus through temptation’s tangles in our 8:30, 9:45, or 11:00 service as we find out together. See you there … and bring friends!