Don’t Let Us Be Tempted


Controlling our passions and cravings, mastering our impulses and follow through, has intrigued philosophers and psychologists for as long as there have been people studying people. “The word temptation, wrote Oswald Chambers, has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use the word in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human.” 

The season of Lent has become increasingly important in my own growth and spiritual formation. I practice Lent because it helps me connect to Jesus in a way that is far more complex than savior. As the faithful journey through the Lenten calendar towards Good Friday and Easter Resurrection, let’s leave room for some serious self-reflection beginning with temptation. Temptation, it’s as old as, well … the Garden of Eden.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die … Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman…” (Genesis 2:15-17) Adam and Even fell for the seductive lie of the cunning snake in the grass, unfurling the redemptive plan of God in Christ.



The humanity of Jesus —  the wilderness temptation. The temptation of Christ is a biblical narrative detailed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.  The story begins at the River Jordan 42miles from Mount Quarantani, on the West Bank. There in the Judaean Desert  some 1200ft above the City of Jericho, the tempter indices Jesus to create, leap and kneel. He resisted, fasting praying and accurately quoting Scripture. For us, this story is a good test for how seriously we take the Christ’s humanity, while considering our own temptations in the reality of His.


Hope - Temptations Thwarted. Was Jesus just an actor in play where the outcome was always certain? Or was Jesus truly enticed by the dark side? “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Temptations come in many forms. The reminder here today as we move towards Easter, on our Lenten travels, is to take time to be quiet, to be watchful, praying:

Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: 
Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; 
Lead us not into temptation ...

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