God’s Power verses Our Will
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me
Galatians 2:20
The near permanent way to overcome temptations is see our sinful desires crucified with Christ, and we no longer have a sinful will. When tempted we tell ourselves we have no sinful will.
And we also have the power of God within us, but our sinful fleshly desire is always there and it is sometimes difficult to control; and this is the spiritual war that we all fight. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. (James 1:15) Once we have a sinful thought and we don’t capture it to the obedience of Christ, our emotional desire will cause it to be conceived into our minds.
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13) God will provide an escape for every temptation we have, and calling the power of God is the first step. Every Christian must develop their own pattern for escaping temptations.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5) This verse tells us how to escape a sinful thought. When we have a sinful thought, we train ourself to demolish it through the power of God, and we change our thought to a Bible verse that gives us strength to overcome. We must slow down inside and capture every sinful thought, no matter what the sinful desire is, we identify it as sin against God.
We can practice this technique by thinking a sinful thought, and go through each step to overcome it from be conceived in the mind. If we use a known sinful thought when the desire is not there; then when the desire is there, we will automatically respond towards victory. This often requires training to escape a strong temptation, and always pray for the power of God to overcome every temptation, especially for a recuring temptation.
Many times, the temptation is based on our location; we can change our location, or change the environment of the location by posting scriptures and disabling anything that may cause us to sin. The best thing to do is at the first thought, is to leave the environment: go for a walk, go for a drive, call a friend, read scripture and pray. Do anything that will cause new thinking.
Another technique that often works, is to realize all sin originates with Satan, and he hates people because we are created in the image of God; and he is trying to destroy us to keep us out of Heaven to hurt God. When we give in to our own sinful will, picture Satan laughing as us because he now has control over us when it comes to sin.
Today live in victory over Satan who is always seeking to tempt us to sin by controlling our emotions. But today live with power of God to overcome every temptation.
Prayer: Lord, give me the power to overcome all temptations, and replace evil with good. In Jesus name, Amen