No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13
Temptation is the desire to do something that is usually wrong to do. It is doing something that a person is not supposed to do. Temptation started in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and has never stopped. It is not sin in itself. The act of acting upon that temptation is what becomes sin for a person.
The power of temptation is different for each person, depending on what the temptation is. For some people, the temptation to smoke is never a problem. They are so much against the idea of smoking that there never seems to be any real temptation. While with another person, just seeing a cigarette causes them to want one and smoke it.
Many people, however, claim that they cannot help but give into the temptation. They feel that they have no option but to give in. Often they state that they are addicted and cannot help but do the temptation. Most temptations are dealt around self and pleasing self. If it was immediately harmful to a person, most likely he would not do it. But most temptations are pleasing at the moment.
Paul says that is not the truth. Every temptation that a person goes through is a common temptation. One is not the only person to have ever felt that temptation. In the process of being tempted, every person has an option, to follow that temptation, or to flee from it. God always makes a way out of that temptation.
The easiest way to get out of that temptation is to flee somewhere else and get the mind on God and His word. One needs to focus on praising God and praying to God. Turn away from the temptation to sin against God.
Once you turn away from a temptation and turn to God, it becomes easier to turn away from that temptation. The more you give in to that temptation, the easier it will be to give in to it.
If your eyes, heart and life are focused on God and loving Him and other people, all temptation will be destroyed. It will no longer be about self. God made the way out of it. Walk that path.
I pray today that you will seek God when temptations arise; that you will focus your life on God; that God will keep a song of praise in your heart to keep you in His will; and that God will reveal the way out of all temptations.
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