Are You an Easy Target for Temptation?
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to men: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
I Corinthians 10:13
Sometimes it is good to apply literal understanding to the Scriptures. The Bible tells us that God gives us an escape route anytime we are faced with temptation.
The word escape implies that there must be action on our part. It is only logical that when a way of escape available, you make use of the quick exit when an emergency arises.
Therefore, we must make use of the exit for it to work for us.
The text does not tell us that God delivers us from temptation, but He grants us a way to deliverance and He leaves us with the choice of whether to follow that way or not.
So, to understand our responsibility in our escape from temptation, there are two movements this text encourages that form God’s means of delivering us from temptation.
How big a target are you for temptations?
There are certain vices to which I am susceptible. For those temptations, I am already a target.
However, I would be an even bigger target if I bring myself closer to where these vices thrive. But if I put a great distance between myself and the object of temptation, I make myself a smaller target.
The temptation can shoot its wily arrows at me. But, at a safe distance, I become a difficult target for it. So, I can gracefully dodge all the enemy’s plots to bring me down.
All this is to say that – You become a smaller target for temptation when you put a safe distance between yourself and the source of the enticement to sin.
Therefore, the first movement is to distance yourself from anything that is a source of temptation to you.
But what happens when temptation sneaks up on you?
There is another movement that this Scripture implicitly encourages.
The promise we have in this verse is that: God will always make a way of escape. Whenever temptation corners us, God gives us a way to avoid it.
Another thing you can be sure of is that the way of escape will be brightly illuminated in the light of God’s Word. God wants you to use the escape route He made for you. So, you will not have to struggle to find it, you just have to be willing to use it.
But what are we to do when God makes a way: we must certainly run through it. When God creates a way for you to escape from temptation, the wise thing to do is for you to make a swift retreat that way.
Why must you make a quick exit? Because the longer you put off the choice, the harder it becomes. When you fail to make that decision, time will make it for you and time will not favour you.
God is faithful to keep His part, so anyone who gets caught up in a web of temptation is guilty of inaction. He refused to make use of the way that God made for him, and the blame falls squarely on his shoulders.
If you are feeling cornered by temptations right now, LOOK UP, there is a way of escape! Don’t waste time and spiritual energy on a temptation that God has given you the grace to avoid.
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