#75Hard Day 37: Two Lessons From Temptation

▶️ Many times when we feel the pressure of temptation, we attempt to overcome it with willpower and white knuckling it.
▶️ First in for most, surrender power and control to God in the moment of temptation and ask Him for guidance.
▶️ Next, look at what you can learn from temptation. There are two things that we see might be the source of temptation when we look at the story of Jesus’s temptation in the Bible.
▶️ First, temptation can be a spiritual attack of the enemy trying to derail you from your larger purpose. Temptation does not necessarily mean that you are not within God’s will. If anything it could mean that you are a threat to him and he is trying to take you out.
▶️ Satan attacked Jesus with half truths when trying to keep Him from fulfilling His purpose. He took scripture out of context and twisted it into a lie. When Satan does this to us, we need to respond by proclaiming God’s truth back and leaning into His strength to overcome.
▶️ Second, temptation could be a warning sign that you are tapped out and on empty in an area of your life. Whether it’s emotional, physical, spiritual, relational, etc., we often end up trying to meet a need in a different area than the one that’s truly lacking.
▶️ Satan waited until Jesus was physically depleted having fasted for 40 days. He tempted him in the desire for things other than just food though.
▶️ Use temptation as a trigger to dig deeper for the root of the problem. Don’t try to solve a problem only to create another problem. Make sure you are filling your cup—the right cup the right way—and address the right problem.