.webp)
Winning against Temptation - Greg Laurie Daily Devotion - July 18
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Winning against Temptation
I do so with Christ’s authority for your benefit, so that Satan will not outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes. (
Have you ever been simply humming along as a Christian, doing well, when all of a sudden you’re barraged with an onslaught of spiritual attacks? You find yourself facing everything from trials to doubts to heavy-duty temptations.
You wonder what’s happening, and you’d like all of it to just stop. You’d like to find a little foxhole to crawl into. It’s called spiritual warfare, and you’re in the heat of the battle.
As Christians we need to understand that we will move either forward or backward in the spiritual battle. If we are true followers of Jesus Christ, then we will face spiritual warfare.
We have an enemy, the devil, who moves in relatively predictable patterns. It may surprise you to know that Satan uses the same tactics year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation, century after century. He doesn’t really change up what he does.
Victor Hugo, the author of Les Miserables, said, “A good general must penetrate the brain of his enemy.” Our enemy is the devil, and the Bible says that we need to know about his strategies and deceits. We need to know what he is thinking and what he is up to.
The devil is so cunning because first he fires an arrow at us, and then he condemns us for being hit. It isn’t a sin to be tempted. The sin of temptation is not in the bait; it is in the bite. If you refuse the temptation, you have successfully passed the test. As one person said, “I can’t stop a bird from flying over my head, but I can stop it from building a nest in my hair.”
We need to reject temptation. We can’t stop it from coming into our minds, but we don’t have to invite it in.
Copyright © 2018 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
For more relevant and biblical teaching from Pastor Greg Laurie, go to www.harvest.org
and
Listen to Greg Laurie's daily broadcast on OnePlace.com.
Watch Greg Laurie's weekly television broadcast on LightSource.com.
SPECIAL OFFER
In thanks for your gift, you can receive I Can Only Imagine on DVD
Bart Millard of MercyMe lived a troubled childhood because of an abusive father. But by the power of the gospel, Bart says, “God transformed the monster I hated into the man I wanted to become.” Witness how Bart’s father became a new creation in Christ and the influence it had on the creation of the popular song “I Can Only Imagine.”
Get a copy of this compelling DVD in thanks for your generous donation to Harvest Ministries today.
