Daily Thought for Wednesday, January 26th

January 26, 2011

Temptation

Today’s Thought:

“The difficulties and struggles of today are but the price we must pay for the accomplishments and victories of tomorrow.” William J.J. Boetcker

Today’s Question

Is temptation an excuse to cover a weakness or does it offer a challenge to be strong?”

Today’s Spiritual Thought:

A man or woman who says they have never been tempted is a person who has already succumbed to he greatest temptation of all – self-deceit.

“There are times in everyone’s life when something constructive is born out of adversity … when things seem so bad that you’ve got to grab your faith by the shoulders and shake it”. – Unknown

Faith is born from hearing truth, but it grows by facing opposition, testing and trials.

We know that without faith it is impossible to please God, but did you know that in order to prove our faith sometimes we must face adversity, challenges and temptations.   If faith were never put to the test; there would really be no concrete proof that it actually existed.

Temptations do not come so we can have an opportunity to sin – rather they come so we can have the pleasure of overcoming them.

Robert Browning put it this way:

Why comes temptation but for man to meet

And master and make crunch beneath his foot,

And so be pedestaled in triumph?

God intends for our moments of weakness to become opportunities for His triumph in us, the catch is we have to resist rather than submit to whatever the temptation may be.

If our faith does not enable us and give us strength to overcome those things that would attempt to destroy it – then our faith is lacking and it is need of some building up.

We are instructed to grow in faith, to build each other up in faith and to walk in faith and the best way to succeed in accomplishing these things is to surround ourselves with the object of our faith.  If we read His word, commune with Him in prayer and communicate in praise, while we actively execute our worship then our faith will never fail us and we will get through even the worst of times.

Today’s Verses:

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren.  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

James 1:12-17

Today’s Prayer:

Father, by faith I believe Jesus died for my sins and now that I am forgiven, may I live by that faith to know that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.