How to Handle Temptation

What’s your plan when you are tempted? We are all tempted. Temptation is not sin. Temptation is not from God. Jesus was tempted, but did not sin. We need a plan for when we are tempted. Today we look at how scripture guides you in practical ways to overcome temptation. God’s purpose and passion will be ignited when you honor God. When you say no to sin, the fire grows, and you become more alive.

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Show Notes:

What’s your plan when you are tempted?

• We are all tempted.
• Temptation is not sin.
• Temptation is not from God.
• Jesus was tempted, but did not sin.
• God is faithful and gives away out in temptation.
• We need a plan for when we are tempted.
• Jesus was tempted” in Scripture three times.
• Scripture is the power of God.

Do you have a Bible verse for when you are tempted?

There are two types of sins: Commission and omission.

• Sin is rebellion and missing the mark.
• Sin wants to master us.
• Sin can gain a foothold in our lives.
• Jesus has power greater than sin.
• Sin is chocolate covered poison.
• Jesus wants to set us free.
• Scripture guides us in practical ways.
• Get distance from sin.
• Pray when you attempted.
• Bring accountability into your life.
• The fire of God grows when we choose purity.
• How to overcome pornography.
• How to overcome your temper.
• How to overcome excuses and fears.
• God is gracious and gives us a new start.
• Our past failures do not define us.
• Jesus and Joseph, were good examples David, Solomon, and Sampson struggled.
• Choose the Word over the world. Good over evil. Truth over lies. Light over darkness.
• God’s purpose and passion will be ignited when you honor God.
• When you say no to sin, the fire grows, and you become more alive.

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Special thanks to World Concern for sponsoring The Bonfire Podcast.

Transcription:

Purposely your life, God’s purpose. Listen at onpurposely.com.

Jesse Bradley:

There’s a habit that you can cultivate that’ll renew your mind and transform your life, and that’s the reason I wrote the Power of the Second Thought. My professional soccer career ended with a tragic illness in Africa. I was fighting for my life for one year and it took 10 years to fully recover. I just didn’t have a roadmap. I didn’t have the tools. I didn’t know how to take the next step forward. I didn’t find hope until I lost it. And I discovered that hope is available to everyone. That hope in abundance is relational. It’s also habitual, and there’s an indestructible hope that’s greater than the challenges that we face. Maybe you’re navigating some detours and difficulties right now and you need some direction. Check out the book, look at the information below.

Welcome to The Bonfire. God is love. God is light. God is a consuming fire, and this bonfire is all about God’s presence. We want to grow in our faith together, we gather together, love to hear from you, and the interaction is increasing. You can go to thebonfire.org, share the topics you want us to cover, give us feedback as we grow together and we’re taking all those questions, those topics, your stories, and then shaping where we’re going with a podcast. We just completed season number one. There’s seven episodes, seven different people in the Bible, incredibly inspiring, all walking with God’s presence. Now, today as we start the second season, we’re going to look at seven different situations. We decided to get very specific in this second season. And in the second season, these situations again, we’re going to stay with scripture and we’re going to talk about real life.

What does it look like to walk with God, to have more of his presence in our lives? And the topic today is How to Handle Temptation. How to Handle Temptation. I want to give it some context and then dive deep. First of all, it’s important to know that we are all tempted. Daily, we are tempted. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve walked with God or you love God, every day you’re going to be tempted, and to be tempted is not a sin. There’s a big difference. Jesus was tempted but he didn’t sin. We can be tempted and choose not to sin. That’s right. The devil can’t make you do anything. That old classic excuse, “Well, the devil made me do it.” That doesn’t fly because the devil can’t make you sin. You have a choice, and in those choices, there’s a reliance on God. What I’ve noticed is that there’s a lot of people who just don’t have a plan.

They don’t have a roadmap, and today, by the end of this time together, I want to make sure that you have a clear plan and that you experience the power of God when you are tempted. Now, temptations come in all different ways. Temptations are not from God. The book of James says that God does test us, but that’s different. A temptation, that allurement, that enticement, the devil tempts. Why? Because the devil wants to steal, kill, and destroy. Sin is real. Sin wants to master you. Evil is real. If you say yes to sin, it can develop a stronghold and a foothold in your life because sin comes, wants to master us. We never have enough. Sin doesn’t satisfy. It’s like a chocolate covered poison. It’s deceptive. It feels good initially and then leaves a deep scar. And in a world that wants to blur the lines between light and darkness, good and evil, sin and purity, there’s a clarity and an absolute truth that comes from God in scripture and we know exactly what sin is and sin is missing the mark.

Sin is rebellion. It’s an archery term. There’s iniquity, transgression, and ultimately what we’re saying is that, “God, our way is better than yours. We’re not going to trust you. I’m calling the shots and I want to live life how I want to do it.” That’s the essence of sin. It’s always centered on pride and we are tempted every day. So what do you do when you’re tempted? What is your plan? Do you have any plan? When I talk with people and they get honest, they usually end up saying that their plan is just to try hard, to hopefully do better and try to avoid sin or try not to sin too much and that can be a great starting point in a good first intention, but you need much more than that. Now today, let’s look at Matthew chapter four, and Jesus was tempted. Our example is Jesus, when we want to learn how to respond to a situation, let’s go right to the Lord and see what he does because not only does he model it and then teaches us, guides us, he’s with us always, he’s going to help us.

In Matthew chapter four, the devil literally shows up. You’re not going to have an encounter probably where you experience the devil. You might experience demons and darkness. There might be friends who try to pull you into the sin, but he comes to that point where the temptation is so strong. He’s in the wilderness. It’s right after a victory. His baptism right after the affirmation, “This is my son whom I love and whom I’m well pleased.” Right after that victory comes a temptation. Be alert after success. And he’s in the wilderness. He’s fasting 40 days. And in that context, the devil shows up in temps. Now here’s Jesus’s plan. Here’s his response. Three times he quotes scripture, he goes to the book of Deuteronomy and he does that repeatedly. How many people have a plan that when they’re tempted they’re going to quote Deuteronomy? I just don’t hear about that very often.

Now as the devil shows up in temps him Jesus quote scripture, “You know, man doesn’t live on bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” And then he continues and Jesus will say, “Worship the Lord only. Serve him only.” And makes it very clear and is even tempted in a twisted way as the devil tries to manipulate and falsely interpret one of the Psalms to try to tempt Jesus. Isn’t it interesting that the devil knows some scripture, knows how to twist scripture? And all kinds of false teachers today that want to lead you astray. And again, Jesus will hold on to that line. “Don’t put the Lord your God to the test.” Three times tempted, he quotes scripture every time. Can you kind of anticipate the takeaway here? What scripture do you have when you are tempted? Most people don’t have a scripture.

They just go through temptation and see how it plays out. Try their best each day. And if you don’t have a plan, a lot of times you’ll go back to the same sin every time without your scripture. Scripture is the sword. It’s the word of God and it’s powerful. Not only a plan, but power. You have the power of God. When you have scripture, you’re going to be tempted multiple times. You probably know at this point in your walk with God and you’ve lived enough life to know what your weaker points are. Which areas are you most likely to be tempted? Is it on your phone with purity and looking at the wrong stuff? Is it your temper? Is it that you get scared so you don’t serve God or share your faith? What are the specific areas where you are tempted and what are the scriptures that you are going to choose?

And when you’re tempted, you’re going to use that scripture. That’s the plan that the Savior gives us. We would be wise to run with that plan, wise to bring that plan into application. Be a doer of God’s word. Psalm one 19. Ask this question, “How can a young man keep his way pure? Or how can a young woman, how can a woman of any age or a man of any age keep their way pure?” And this is the key. How can you stay pure? By living according to your word. I have hidden your word in my heart so that it may not sin against you. The hiding of God’s word in your heart and your mind, that’s the renewal of the mind. That is the power of God. The battle and temptation is between the word and the world. It’s between your flesh and your spirit.

It’s between goodness and evil, light and darkness, truth and lies. The devil is full of lies and this world is full of lies. There are patterns in this world that don’t align with heaven. And to break those and step out of those to be counter-cultural, you’re going to need courage. You’re going to need clarity. You need God’s word and to have God’s word in your mind and in your heart. Now I realize some people memorize scripture better than others. It comes more naturally, it’s easier. For you, it might be a lot of work. In that case, write it down. It’s all right to have a 3-by-5 card. You’re no less spiritual if you need to look at the scripture versus memorize it. But either way, you have the word of God and choose some verses. Choose some verses that you are going to use when you’re tempted.

And I think they can be very specific to the situation that you’re tempted. Now, as you open up the Bible, you’re going to see the same temptation and people respond very different ways. Joseph was tempted. Potiphar’s wife came to him, wanted to sleep with him, and what does he say, “How could I sin against God in sleep with you?” And he says no, it’s a firm no, he holds his ground. He even runs. He runs away from her and he makes that choice. He protects his purity. Now on the contrast, you have Samson who doesn’t create distance from sin, but he actually moves towards sin and he’s pursuing these women and these women that are not godly, these women that are going to take him down in many ways. He continues to choose these women. David is another example where David, he should be serving.

He should be active, but he’s kicking it back while everyone else is in war and he’s just looking around at the rooftops, looking at the beautiful women and he sees Bathsheba, he sleeps with her. She’s married to another man. Now there’s a coverup. There’s always a coverup in adultery, pornography, people hide it. There’s secret sin. David has her husband killed. Now it leads to murder because sin leads to more sin. When you see someone fall in sin and there’s shocking headlines and you’ve seen it with all sorts of different leaders, whether it’s pastors or community leaders, government leaders, there’s a shocking fall. The mighty have fallen. Pride goes before the fall. When you see the fall, first of all, take heed so you don’t fall. Don’t think you’re better than anyone else. Pray for restoration. But notice this, there’s 100 small decisions before the big fall.

Before David’s big fall, he’s making a lot of decisions. And the more you compromise and water down the word and let sin in your life and say yes to a little bit of this and a little bit of that, you become desensitized when you’re tempted and it becomes natural and habit and it’s a sinful pattern in your life. You don’t want the desensitization of the Holy Spirit, the fire of God, the conviction of God, the presence of God, the Holy Spirit. You want to open up the doors in these areas where you’ve been in sin and says, “Holy Spirit, come in. And I don’t want to be like Samson. I don’t want to be like David. I want to learn from that.” Solomon had great wisdom, talked about marriage, talked about purity, and then had all these different wives and had a harem and it’s like, “What do you doing? Solomon, you’re so wise, but why this double life?”

And I’m not looking down on any of them. Any of us could sin in any way any day. That’s the reality. But we can learn from Joseph’s example. We can learn from Jesus’s example. There are different roads you can go down and all of these temptations, they’re linked to your purity and also the power of God, the purpose of God in your life, the passion of God. It is really hard to be in the middle of sin in a purpose and passion flowing out of your life. There’s a consecration, a purity, a choice honoring God. And as you choose God and honor God, obey God, love God, there’s going to be more of God in your life. There’s hope today. If you’ve been making some bad choices, sin has been your story recently. It’s not the end of the story. There is hope. There’s a way out. In fact, the Bible says in 1st Corinthians 10:13, God is faithful when we are tempted. He always gives a way out.

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Now, let’s continue to get specific because this is a very practical season on The Bonfire. Seven situations. And let’s say that you are tempted with porn on your phone. Okay? That’s an area where you’re tempted daily. So what are you going to do? How are you going to handle this? There are some clear directives in scripture that can bolster your purity, and one of them is to pray. Ephesians chapter six, and pray at all times. Stay prayerful. When you’re praying and worshiping, it’s hard to choose sin at the same time. So pray when you’re tempted. We have the Lord’s prayer. Deliver us from evil. And that act of prayer connects you with God. It gives you God’s perspective. God’s power kicks in and you choose purity. You realize what’s going to be best for your soul, your relationships. Sin always has a ripple effect. Sin will affect far more people than you initially realize.

We had an exercise back when I was in grad school in seminary where we took a 3-by-5 card. And the question is, if you choose immorality, who will it affect? And I started to write down the names and I filled up the entire 3-by-5 card front and back, and it became so clear to me that if I make a bad choice, it’s not just about my walk with God, but it’s to nullify some of the impact that would’ve been. And there’s also a destructive impact on dozens and dozens of people. It could be hundreds or thousands of people that are affected by it in some way. So there’s a lot on the line and that’s why this topic is so important. Pray in those times where you’re tempted. The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. So pray. Pray. And that’s Ephesians chapter six, the armor of God.

You can put on the armor of God. Check out that chapter. In addition to that, another principle in scripture is distance. If you play with fire, you’re probably going to get burned. So step back from the fire. In fact, the Bible says with sexual sin, run, flee. Yes, resist the devil. And when you’re tempted and there’s imper options, run and flee. Drop the phone, turn off the phone, get away from the person. Leave the scene. Get far away from… If it’s a store that has impurity, get distance from that stuff. Don’t go near. It’s not a time to say, “Come now, let us reason together.” “Oh, let me see how much I can handle.” A lot of people do this. I’ll just keep doing a little more. That’s not the path to go down. So be clear, get distance, pray, take action, run, flee, get distance, and then invite accountability.

A lot of people don’t invite that accountability. It’s important to have, first of all, accountability under God, and then also who are you accountable to? Who is going to help you? Who is that brother or sister that’s going to walk with you? Ask you the hard questions. Going to check the history of your phone. You can have transparency. Give your phone to your wife or husband to check to a friend to look through. You can also get blockers on your phone to create distance. You might not want to use your phone practically speaking, when you’re alone and late at night. For a lot of people, that’s the time when porn kicks in. It’s late at night. You also want to bolster some of that void. A lot of people turn to their porn because they’re lonely and they’re bored. We’ll then find more places to serve.

Fill out your social schedule. Exercise more. Make time in the evening, a time where you read scripture. Change up your routine. Start to eliminate the intensity of the temptation, and instead of a 200-pound gorilla on your shoulders, it’ll be like a five-pound gorilla on your shoulders. Why? Because you’re praying. You’re creating distance. You have accountability, you are making wise choices. You are avoiding the situations that you know can easily stumble. All of this is going to lead to purity. And when it comes to sin, this is important. There are two kinds of sin. There’s commission and omission. Commission is what you commit that’s wrong, and that could be porn on your phone. Here’s another example, a temper. A lot of people have a temper. Well, what’s your plan if you have a short fuse, if you’re impatient, if you’re rude, if you blow your top, if you escalate conflict instead of de-escalate conflict and you’ve done this many times, what’s your plan?

What’s your scripture? You can take a scripture like in the book of Proverbs. A gentle answer turns away wrath. And when you say that out loud, it reminds you, “I’m going to give a gentle answer because I don’t want to escalate conflict. I don’t want to create difficulties with people I love that are unnecessary. I don’t want to hurt people. I don’t want to overreact. I don’t want to have to apologize because I had road rage or…” Whatever you tend to do. You don’t need to go down that road anymore. God gives you a way out, but you need to plan and you need scripture. When you’re tempted to lose your cool, then what’s your scripture? A gentle answer turns away wrath. And you start to say that when you’re tempted. If you’re tempted with porn, what are you going to say? You might say, “God is love.”

It might be that simple that you remind yourself that God loves you, his love is available right now, and that you’re going to receive his love instead of turning to a false love. Pornography is a false love. It’s a mirage. Again, sin is a chocolate-covered poison. It looks good and feels good initially, but it’s destroying you on the inside. It’s poison. Don’t let it enter into your mind and your eyes and your heart and your soul. Instead, with scripture, with distance, with prayer, with accountability, there’s a new victory. I’m just declaring that for you today that there’s a new victory. I believe that for you. I’m praying that today. That there’s a new victory in your life, that this fire is going to grow. The fire of God is going to grow because you’re responding differently to temptation. You’re making different decisions. God is equipping you and empowering you with his word.

He’s giving you a way out. You don’t have to live as you’ve lived before. This is a new start today. God gives a reset and a restart. And as you step out of those sins of commission that you’re committing, there’s also the sins of omission. Things you could do but are not doing. And one of them could be serving and using your talents to change this world, to change lives. And you might go to a scripture like 1st Timothy 4. God has given everyone spiritual gifts and your gifts might be more in serving or speaking. All the gifts God has given to you, they are wonderful, they are good, and they are used to glorify God. You’ll come alive and lives will be changed. A lot of people have excuses when it comes to serving. “Well, my priorities aren’t quite sorted out. Well, my schedule’s fall. Well, I don’t know where I would serve. I don’t know who my opportunities are. I don’t know if I’m really that gifted. I kind of doubt myself.”

There’s a million excuses. Not hard to find excuses, but overcoming those temptations and excuses, you need a scripture. And it could be… Here’s another scripture. “God doesn’t give us a spirit of timidity, but power in love.” Say that when you’re tempted. To stop serving or to give up or to quit, say that scripture. God doesn’t give me a spirit of timidity and fear, but power in love. And that relates to sharing your faith. You have an incredible story. God has done great things in your life and you can share about the goodness of God with other people. You can share how he’s changed your life, the difference he’s made. Share your journey. Share why you believe what you believe. Share about answer to prayer. Share about how God’s healed you, restored you.

He’s provided for you. He’s answered prayer in terms of a job, he’s done so much for you in your life. Forgiveness of sins, eternal life, peace with God. What Jesus has done for you is not small. It’s not small. It’s too great to stay quiet and be contained. And this world is getting bolder about sin. This world is celebrating and talking about sin more and more and we need to talk about the goodness of God. We need to talk about the greatness of Jesus. His death, his resurrection. What His love does in our souls, his living water that satisfies. So you’re going to be tempted to stay quiet, to retreat, to be intimidated, to be passive, to not really make a difference, to not let people know the good news, and all that can change. All those temptations can be overcome when you know God doesn’t give us a spirit of timidity and fear, but power in love. Are you picking up how this works?

There’s things that you can stop doing. Sins of commission, and it could be with your temper or your purity, pornography. There’s a long list of things that are common in this world and you’re going to be counter-cultural because you’re going to say no. And this is true in middle school, high school, there’s a lot of pressure. People are going to wonder, “How come you don’t swear like everyone else in the room? How come you have integrity? How come you work hard when no one’s looking? How can you always keep your word? What’s going on there? How can you have peace instead of just running to alcohol? Instead of just running to drugs, how come you don’t need them? What’s going on there?” And people are going to notice a difference. They might not applaud right away, but deep down they respect you because why? You’re choosing God’s word, his plan, and his power when you’re tempted instead of the patterns of this world.

And your light’s going to shine, the fire’s going to grow in your life. And that’s not just a fire to sit around, but it’s a fire to move forward. And the sins of omission, omitting what God has called you to do. Instead, you’re going to serve. You’re going to move past excuses and fears and worries and doubts and self-questioning and being harsh with yourself. You’re going to move past those. You’re going to start to serve. You’re going to share with other people. You’re going to bless people. You’re going to come alive. The fire’s going to grow. It’s going to be contagious. They’re going to pick up on it. You’re going to break free from footholds and strongholds. You’re going to live how God’s designed you. He’s made you with gifts and talents and opportunities every day.

And the fire is going to blaze. God wants to ignite a fire. We can extinguish God’s presence in our life. We can… He’ll always love us, never will he leave us or forsake us. But in terms of the amount of the Holy Spirit, in terms of the amount of the fire, Jesus will baptize us with the fire and Holy Spirit and we can have more of the spirit or less of the spirit. And as you say, “No to temptation,” you’re saying yes to God. Every time you say no to sin, you’re saying yes to God. Because when you say yes to sin, you’re saying no to God moving in that part of your life. So turn from sin. The word is repentance. Turn 180 degrees, turn from sin to the savior. You can repent right now. You can choose right now to say no to the patterns and the temptations of sin and say yes to God.

And as you do that, repent. There’s times of refreshing. There’s times of healing. You don’t have to be looking down in guilt and shame. You don’t have to play the old tapes again and again of past mistakes. You don’t have to live in that. It’s not your identity, it’s not your story. It’s not who you are. It’s past mistakes, bad choices that now God is healing and changing. He’s restoring you and there’s a future you can walk into. It’s different from the patterns of the past. And God is able to do that. When you repent, there’s healing. There’s hope that floods into your soul. Repent today. If you’ve never put your trust in Jesus, today is a day of salvation. Don’t harden your heart. The savior forgives all of your sins, not just the small and the medium, but the biggest ones as well. He forgives. Receive the forgiveness from the Lord Jesus. He died for your sins and he is risen. Start a relationship with Jesus right now. Make that decision and let us know. (singing)

Here’s the takeaway. Get a 3-by-5 card. Write down a Bible verse. Write down if you want a couple of Bible verses. You could have one verse for many situations or you can choose a few different verses for different situations. And very specific. If the temptation is your temper, if the temptation is alcohol, if the temptation is pornography, sins of commission, then what’s your Bible verse? And then in terms of omission, what’s your Bible verse that’s going to spur you on to serve, to share, to use your gifts, to make an impact? What does that look like? And if you get stuck in this, you can talk with a pastor, you can talk with, if you have a Bible study leader. You can talk with a counselor. There’s no shame in going to a counselor getting some help from a godly therapist who will help you step into that freedom.

That’s what this is about. Jesus came with truth to set us free. This is about freedom from sin. See, freedom is not just doing whatever I want to do because a lot of people say, “Oh, I’ve got freedom.” And then they choose sin and sin masters them and they serve sin. That’s not freedom. Freedom is knowing what is sin and isn’t sin, knowing what’s right and wrong, and then having God’s power to choose what’s right. And when you live in freedom, where the spirit is there’s freedom, you live in joy and peace and no regret. God’s bringing a new freedom and the fire and the freedom come together. And sin wants to put out the fire. So you’re going to be tempted every day. What’s your plan? How do you lean in with God and the power of God? Read Matthew chapter four again.

Look at what Jesus does when he’s tempted. Have a plan. So few people are quoting scripture. It doesn’t have to be the book of Deuteronomy, but there’s some great options there. And choose your scripture so that when you’re tempted, commission or omission, now you have the scripture and as you say it, the power of God’s going to come alive in your life and you’re going to walk in God’s way. God always gives away out when you’re tempted. God says, “This is the way, walk in it.” It’s the way of the fire, the freedom, God’s presence. It’s the path of impact. It’s the path where you have abundant hope and all of this as a decision that God empowers us to live. Because God encourages. God empowers. Our God is great. He does amazing things. You can share your story with us on thebonfire.org and let’s celebrate what God’s doing.

God’s not dead. He’s not just a concept. This is far more than just knowledge. This is a relationship with a dynamic God who knows us and loves us fully, who is helping us to become more like Jesus. The fire is growing, breaking out a sin, and as a result, we are more ready to help other people and make a difference daily. Okay, so here’s the challenge. Find a Bible verse right now. Choose it and then tell a friend. Tell a friend. Say, “Here’s my verse, when I’m tempted. This is going to be my go-to. I’m going to experience God this week through this verse, and all week long I’m going to say this verse when I’m tempted.” You got that challenge. So take the verse, tell a friend, and you can have some fun with it. Your friend can choose a verse. You can do it together because iron sharpens iron.

But find a specific verse. That’s your verse for this week. Whenever you’re tempted, that’s your go-to verse. Say it out loud. Watch what God will do. You’re going to experience more freedom. You’re going to experience the presence of God. Even when you’re tempted, God is there. He’s going to give you a way out. Rely on scripture. Do it with a friend, and let’s see what God does in our lives this week. Thank you for listening today. Most of all, take what you’ve heard, what God has spoken to you, and live it out. We’re growing. The fire’s growing. That’s what The Bonfire’s all about, God’s presence in our lives because there’s no greater gift than God’s presence. Let’s keep growing together.