We all have different backgrounds and personalities so likely no two of us are tempted in exactly the same way. One person may find it hard to tell the truth in a difficult situation or when trapped between loyalty to two different friends. Another person may find it hard not to have his or her curiosity filled up by the latest unproven rumor about someone in the office. Others may struggle to control or regulate their emotions or appetites. No two of us are alike but we are all tempted to do sinful things from time to time. Temptation itself is not a sin. If we resist temptation, we actually gain graces.
I am not sure about you, but I often fail to resist temptation. Giving in to a sinful temptation never makes me feel good about myself. I always wish that I were stronger. Sometimes I look back and ask myself, “Why did you do that?”
I wonder if you have ever felt like this? Is there some strategy we can follow to build our resistance to temptation?
When we read the Temptation of Jesus in the Gospel, we notice the devil as a source of temptation. Maybe we should blame the devil for all our temptations?
The truth is that we are actually tempted from three sources in our lives. Traditionally we have described them as the world, the flesh and the devil. While not in this traditional order, the devil presents Jesus with these same three temptations. The devil tempts Jesus with grasping the power and glory the world. Jesus is tempted by the flesh to turn stones into loaves of bread, and to worship Satan and put God to a sinful test.
Christian tradition has seen these same three sources of temptation in other passages of scripture (Ephesians 2:1–3a, 1 John 2:16).
And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind … (Ephesians 2:1–3).
St. Paul mentions the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air (or the Devil) and the passions of our flesh.
Realizing that there are three sources of temptation, enables each one of us to take responsibility in a more personal way, since the flesh or our own human desires of body and mind come from within us.
In another passage St. Paul talks about temptation itself, using the same word as in our Gospel,
“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
The Apostle Paul does not mean we all face identical temptations, but that being tempted in general is the common lot of all fallen human persons.
Perhaps we should note that some translations confuse the meaning of this verse by translating “no trials have overtaken you” (NABRE). We need to be clear that nowhere in Scripture does God promise we will necessarily deliver us from all suffering. This verse promises instead that God will make a way of escape for us from sinful temptations.
If this is true, why do we still fail?
If we look to the example of Jesus in our Gospel, we observe that first of all Jesus was “filled with the Spirit” and “led by the Spirit” before encountering his temptations. St. Paul reminds us that the Holy Spirit is our strength and the source of our power against temptations. He writes,
“I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).
The promise of strength and endurance in the face of temptations comes not only from our own strength. We do need to struggle ourselves! In order to escape and resist temptation, the Holy Spirit assists by giving us supernatural grace. This is what St. Paul means by being made alive, and to walk in the Spirit.
As we are encouraged to do during this season of Lent, Jesus also undertakes the discipline of fasting. He even resists his normal healthy bodily appetites for a time, allowing himself to be hungry. In Jesus' case, this fast is of epic or perhaps we should say biblical proportions. St. Luke tells us Jesus “ate nothing” for forty days. Then in what is the most understated verse in the whole of Scripture tells us, when the forty days were over “he was hungry” (Luke 4:2).
Jesus models something else as well. For each one of the temptations he faces, Jesus answers the Devil by quoting from the Bible. We have no indication that Jesus carried scrolls of Scripture texts with him into the desert. To prepare his life for the mission God had called him to; Jesus had spent time being docile to his Father by reading and learning Scripture. He had immersed himself in Scripture to the point that he knew it by heart. This was no casual reading, but an effort to immerse himself in the heart of the Father. As Jesus tells us elsewhere in the Gospels, As the Father says and does, so the Son says and does. Jesus is modeling being a disciple of the Father’s love and mercy, a disciple who desires to be like the Father in every way.
This is the same vision he passes on to us. In St. John’s Gospel Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31–32).
As we enter this Lenten season, let us first offer a prayer to be filled with the Spirit. Let us be willing to resist our bodily desires by means of fasting and small mortifications.
Finally, let us renew our focus on our relationship with God. We may need to create some silence, and to discipline ourselves in prayer. Perhaps we might ask ourselves, if I truly desire to be the child of God and his disciple, have I spent time reading his word with a docile heart, seeking to become like him in every aspect of my life?
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