The Overcoming Christian

A person who believes that power is equally divided between God and Satan is double-minded and unstable in all their ways. This explains why “in time of temptation [some] fall away” (see Luke 8:13). They fall back into fear and lose sight of God’s mighty power.

Jesus taught to “watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). The spirit of God in you yearns to teach you confidence in his power, but the flesh seeks to give in to fear.

I believe fear, not weariness, put the disciples to sleep while Jesus prayed in the garden. They had just received the news that Jesus would be betrayed and delivered into the hands of sinful men, that Peter would become a traitor, and that they would all be offended and scattered. Suddenly, they forgot all his miracles, his mighty power to heal the sick and raise the dead, and his power to multiply loaves and fishes. They were terrified of being abandoned by the Lord. They slept the sleep of doomed men.

When Jesus asks us to pray that we not be led into temptation, he is saying, “Pray that you learn to trust God’s power now, instead of having to go back again and again into the arena of temptation until the lesson is learned!”

The Bible says that “the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations” (2 Peter 2:9). How? By putting you under fire until you come out singing, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

At times, you may have to yield to temptation. Even the saintliest of God’s people occasionally do. That is why God made special provisions for those who fail: “And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

Our Lord is not nearly as grieved by our yielding to temptation as he is by our not learning how to deal with it. He is hurt more because we have not trusted his power to deliver. God is hurt not so much by what we do as by what we do not do. The overcoming Christian is one whose life confesses, “God has the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen!