When you are having problems in your life and you are tempted to do wrong, do you ever think, “Why is God doing this to me?” Implying that somehow, God is tempting you to do wrong, or putting problems in your way leaving you no choice but to do wrong. God does not tempt us. It is typically our own wrong thoughts and desires that put us in these difficult situations.

For example do we give into the temptation to: cheat when we are not prepared rather than being honest and accepting the result, lie rather than be truthful and accept the consequences, come up with our own theories about life rather than reading and accepting what the bible tells us, ignore God’s morality because it doesn’t fit our viewpoint.

God does let us experience the consequences of our actions and He lets us experience temptation in order for us to learn to make the correct response. We may go for a long time experiencing the same temptation over and over while God waits for us to change our response to the right one.

James writes in 1:14, “Temptation is the pull of man’s own evil thoughts and wishes. These evil thoughts lead to evil actions and afterwards to the death penalty from God. So don’t be misled, dear brothers.” He says in verse 12, however, “Happy is the man who doesn’t give in and do wrong when he is tempted.” TLB

Dear Lord, help us look at ourselves, find, confess and turn away from those behaviors and thoughts that we know are wrong and become the happy men and women James speaks of who do not give in when tempted. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.