Live in God's WillÖrnek

Part Three: How Can We Live in God’s Will? Day 14: Live in God’s will by praying against temptation. God hears our heartfelt prayers of wanting to change. We want to purge sin out of our lives, and He wants to come alongside us and help us experience victory. When we feel weak, temptations are hard to resist. Here’s what we need to remember: temptation itself is not a sin. Just feeling tempted may cause us to feel guilty or defeated, and so we give in to it. The Bible says that Jesus was tempted but without sin. This means temptation alone is not a sin. God promises we will be given a way to flee every temptation. What if we looked at every temptation not as a slippery slope to failure, but a stepping stone to our character growth? Every time we say “no” to temptation, we are saying “yes” to God’s will to make us more like Him. The night Jesus was arrested and taken away to be murdered, he was found near His disciples in a garden praying. He had urged His disciples twice to pray that they wouldn’t fall into temptation. Instead of praying, they slept. They didn’t grasp the urgency of Jesus’ request. They weren’t feeling tempted at that moment. They were feeling sleepy. They didn’t know what was going to transpire only an hour later. So, they ignored His instructions. They didn’t listen. They didn’t obey. They chose to succumb to their flesh and sleep instead. But then, the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, and they weren’t spiritually prepared. They were tempted to abandon Jesus and run away. And that’s precisely what they did. They were not spiritually equipped for that moment, and they failed Jesus. Here’s the key: Jesus didn’t ask them to pray in the moment of temptation. Jesus asked them to pray before they were tempted. Jesus wants us to pray in the calm before the storm so that we can obey Him in the turbulence of the storm. Let us be proactive and learn the lesson the disciples didn’t learn. We must pray before we are tempted about the things we know trigger us to give in to our flesh. Then we will be prepared to see the way out when temptation confronts us. We will not be caught off guard. We will be prepared. Did you ever think that Jesus was asking His disciples to pray the same thing He was praying for Himself? Don’t you think He was tempted to not go through the agony of the cross? He pleaded for God to take this cup of suffering away from Him. He asked God if there was another way.  Jesus knew He needed that focused time of prayer so that He could resist the temptation to flee the pain of the cross. If Jesus needed to be intentional and set aside focused time to pray so that He would submit to the Lord’s will, how much more do we? We will not walk in the will of God unless we are men and women of prayer. When we pray, God will answer our request to be Spirit-filled. God will answer our request to resist temptation. He will equip us. We just need to invite Him to do so. · What part of your flesh are you battling with daily? Are you willing to be intentional enough to fight this battle in prayer every day alongside the Holy Spirit? PRAYER: Thank You, God that You hear me when I ask for help against my areas of temptation. Please help me in these areas today:_________________. Help me to say no to temptation and yes to walking in Your will. Empower me with Your Spirit so that I have the strength to do this. Amen.