Don The Armour

Being tempted is not a sin, which we know because Jesus was tempted while he was on earth. And if you read Matthew 4, you will see that the Holy Spirit is the one that leads him into temptation, not Satan. God will do this in our lives at times too. You can think of temptation as a man knocking at your door. If you look through the peephole and see that the man seems like bad company, you shouldn’t open the door but send him away immediately. If you do this, you have not sinned but have acted like Jesus did in the wilderness. But sometimes we hear the knock and crack the door to see what he wants, and before long, he is making himself at home in our house, and we are serving him dinner.

Every time you hear that knock, you are brought to a crossroads where you have a choice. In Matthew 4, we see that when Jesus came to this point, he turned away the enemy every single time with one powerful tool: scripture. His example demonstrates the importance of knowing the Word well enough that it’s alive inside you. You may not have every sentence memorized or know exact chapter and verse numbers, but if you can recall God’s Word in these moments, you will have better discernment for his will and the correct action. Most likely, your bad company won’t wait for you to pull a Bible off your shelf for a reference, so follow our Savior’s lead and study the scriptures to have them available for your counsel in these battles against Satan.