James 1:12-18
12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having
stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has
promised to those who love him. 13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God
cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is
tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15Then,
after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is
full-grown, gives birth to death. 16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we
might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.
Have you ever been tempted to sin? You know, that choice
where your conscience is telling you that you shouldn’t but your mind or your
emotions are going there anyway. You see, many times we ‘numb’ our conscience
to the point that we ‘know the right thing to do, but don’t do it’ – see Romans
7 for this. So, how does this happen? How do we find ourselves ‘in’ sin? Well,
for most of us it doesn’t just happen in the instant that you are first
tempted, it has been a progress of thoughts and emotions that you seem to have
been ‘fighting with’ for a while. Take a look at the verse, “but each person is
tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.” Now
that is pretty vivid isn’t it? We are fighting with our conscience about
something that we know, or at least have a feeling that we shouldn’t be doing,
saying, thinking, etc. But we are letting that ‘evil desire’ drag us down the
road toward sin- we are being enticed! Notice that this ‘dragging’ and
‘enticing’ aren’t sin; this is ‘temptation’. This temptation doesn’t become sin
until it is ‘conceived’.
Take a look at the next verse, “Then, after desire has
conceived, it gives birth to sin;” So, this ‘temptation’ that you have been
‘fighting’ doesn’t become ‘sin’ until it is conceived; until you begin to experience the sin either physically,
emotionally or mentally. Physically you engage in the desire that you have been
thinking about or mentally and emotionally you begin to experience pleasure
from the thought or feelings that the desire is giving you and instead of
wanting it gone you begin to roll it over in your mind and ‘play’ with this
evil desire: sin has been conceived! The problem with sin, however, is that it
isn’t satisfied with just being conceived but just like a new born child is born
to grow into adulthood, this ‘new born’ sin left unchecked will also continue
to grow until it is full grown. See the last part of the verse, “and sin, when
it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” And that is the problem: if we don’t
stop sin in its tracks, either at the temptation when it is the easiest or after
its conception which is much harder, we are heading for disaster. Death is the
ultimate end for full grown sin, and it can be a sad physical death from the
sin and its consequences, or it can be the spiritual death of the person and
their conscience. Neither of these results are what the ‘desire’ promises in
the beginning: it is a well disguised evil that is trying to kill you!
So, what’s the answer? How do we keep ourselves from being
dragged away and enticed into sin? As the warning in the passage says, “Don’t
be deceived”. God doesn’t change and he has given us our conscience to lead us
away from being dragged down the road to sin. What are those “good and perfect”
gifts that God has given to you? God has uniquely created you and he is fully
aware of your God given desires, so, if these desires are becoming ‘evil’ and
starting to drag you away, you need to be on your knees, into his word and
talking to someone who is a true believer about what is going on with you.
Remember, desires once turned ‘evil’ want to drag you away, to get you alone or
with others who have already gone down the road of evil themselves. Don’t be
deceived! Look, God doesn’t change “like
shifting shadows”, so your conscience won’t tell you something is ok when it is
shown to be wrong in “the word of truth” or leave you alone when others who are
true believers are warning you and speaking against the ‘temptation’. If we are
making excuses or rationalizing that something may be ok for us even though it’s
not for others, we are starting to conceive. If you don’t want to talk about
your ‘fight’ with someone who is a true believer because you know they won’t
condone it, you’re already being ‘dragged away’. Don’t be deceived! Get into
the word, pray, talk to others who are true believers, listen to your
conscience, and then run to God. I’m not saying that it is going to be easy;
however, if you do this you will be able to “persevere” when the temptations
come and instead of being dragged down a road toward death you will be on the
road that leads to the “crown of life”.
Take a look at the following video where Tony Evans speaks about the 'armor' we need to have on every day to get away from the enemies deception:
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