35 days of Lent: Temptation

Have you ever heard the phrase "there's plenty of blame to go around?" It's generally a true statement. In any situation where something goes wrong...you can keep peeling away layer after layer of blame. 

I once shot a gun out of a window when I was a kid. My father was a police officer, and I plotted and planned my way into its hiding place. Who was to blame?

• Kid Kristen - why did she do this bad thing? 
• Dad - why didn't he have the gun locked in a safe? 
• Gun - why do you exist? 

There's possibly more blame to go around, but that's all I could think of. But what was really to blame was the life cycle of temptation. There is a course that temptation follows:  

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. 

- James 1:13-18

What I found two things about this scripture cool (though there are probably dozens): 

1. God is not to blame for your temptation 
2. There is a natural progression/ life-cycle for temptation 

God gets blamed for a lot of things: natural disasters, death, good things happening to bad people, etc. Even Job proclaimed "though HE slay me" (Job 13:15). God IS responsible for a lot of things, but He's not responsible for our moral failures. He doesn't make husbands cheat on their wives. He doesn't make people file fraudulent tax returns. God doesn't "set you up." 

But rather there is a process to sin. A life cycle. 

But it doesn't seem like that. The most famous instance of temptation in the Bible sort of seems...like a set-up: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

Why was that tree in the garden of Eden? Why was the tree forbidden of Adam and Eve? But the

tree wasn't even a problem until (1) lust was conceived:

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. - Genesis 3:4-6

life cycle

This scripture is amazing because Eve had lived with the tree for a long time prior to now, and it had never looked this way before. Suddenly it looked good. And suddenly it was the source of wisdom. But it's what she saw. Sure, Satan showed it to her, but no one can show you something that you refuse to look at. She let that seed take root.

And then she (2) took the fruit and ate it (gave birth to sin). And the result was (3) death . The entrance of death onto the world stage/separation from God through sin.




 
Three stages, and God wasn't involved in any of them. He didn't create the lust. He didn't puppeteer Adam and Eve into the sinful action that separated them from God. He simply can't take that blame.


What God has done is made a way to get out of the cycle: 

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.  

- 1 Corinthians 10:13

Temptation is common. Escape from it is uncommon. Sometimes I wonder if I have been ignoring my escape routes! I almost never think about temptation. Maybe because it has become too common, and it's life cycle has become part of my life cycle. But escape is available.