temptations, trials with evil and traps whose purpose is to harm us, are things that do not come from God, but from His enemy and ours: the devil.
This is what the Word of God tells us referring to who is behind the temptation:
(Matthew 4: 1) "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil."
(Luke 4: 2) "for forty days, and was tempted by the devil. He did not eat anything in those days, after which he was hungry. "
Many believe that temptations and trials that contain evil come from God; that is, that He brings evil into our lives to make us better. However, this is not true. The tempter, the tempter with the evil, is not God but the devil and does so directly or indirectly.
Forms of temptation
- Temptations that come from people who oppose God and His Word.
Jesus and his disciples often came face to face with this kind of temptation and trials.
(Matthew 16: 1) "The Pharisees and the Sadducees came to tempt Him, and they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven."
a way in which the devil tempts the people of God, it is through other people and through persecution and affliction by the Word of God.
- Temptations coming from one's desires.
The carnal desires are another way by which someone can be tempted.
(James 1: 13-15) "When anyone is tempted, do not say that he is tempted by God, because God can not be tempted by evil or tempted by anyone; but each one is tempted, when of his own passion he is attracted and seduced. Then passion, after it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is finished, gives birth to death".
(1 Timothy 6: 9) "But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts that plunge men into destruction and destruction."
the temptation is man's own desires; that is, old desires of man that have followed him through time, such as the desire to be rich.
(Galatians 5:17) "For the desire of the flesh is against the Spirit and the desire of the Spirit is against the flesh; and these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you would like. "
The temptations of this category those in which we decided to enter, attracted and seduced by our flesh, the man of the past. Again let us hold high the volume of the Scriptures: sin, destruction, destruction, death.
To continue with the desires of the men of the past is a very serious matter with the most serious consequences.
Let's not deceive ourselves by thinking that perhaps because we are saved by grace, that means we are free to continue with the desires of the man of the past and somehow escape its consequences.
We are the ones called to take away the man from the past and put on the new one. We are called to renew our minds and we are called to protect our hearts with all diligence.
Without God's help, there is not much we can do. But God's help comes to those who are willing to follow Him. Do not deceive ourselves with the idea that we will somehow be fruitful Christians, while at the same time our hearts and minds follow the carnal desires of the man of the past .
- Temptations directly from the devil.
I used to believe that because I'm a Christian, the devil can not talk to me. But if he can, he did it with Jesus.
If we decide to ignore this possibility and consider that everything that comes from the spiritual world comes from God, then we are opening a door to the devil to lead us down the wrong path by giving us false information in which we believe, because we think that it clearly comes from the spiritual field and that comes from God.
I have seen people who claim to be Christians committing adultery, divorcing their Christian wives and marrying others (who also claim to be Christian) and, as if all that were not enough, justify their actions by saying that God supposedly told them to do it. God tell them to do something like that? Do not! How do we know? Because a council of this kind is completely opposed to the Word of God. What really happened, and the Word explains it clearly and fully, is that by not being vigilant, they were attracted by their own lust and seduction, thus opening the door to the devil. If someone really told them to act like that, that was not God, but the devil.
The Word of God is therefore the measure against which any information that comes from the spiritual realm must be measured and evaluated. Jesus also did this when he used the Word of God to fight Satan and his temptations.
if there is something that you want very strongly (a wife, a husband, a career, etc.) you have to give it to God and decide within yourself that even if God does not grant you what you want so strongly, this will not be a big deal . In any case, He always knows what is best. You will continue to love and serve him, no matter how things turn out. Delivering an issue to God and accepting any result that He can bring us closes the doors to temptation.
You can not be dragged by the passions, if you do not have passions!