The Devil Made Me Do It - Or Did He?

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. (James 1:12-15)

How many times have you done or said something that you knew was not becomming of a child of God and afterward jokingly replied that the devil made you do it? How many times have you given into temptation and then blamed everyone around you but yourself? I know I'm guilty of both offenses on countless occassions. However after I stumbled across this scripture I know one thing is for certain, I will not give the enemy any unjust credit anymore. You see, the devil can not make us do anything just as God will not. By us saying that the devil made us do one thing or another, we are calling ourselves the devil because we have free will and are controlled by no one but ourselves.

We are going to be tried. Jesus was tried and tempted but He didn't give in (See Matthew 4).Instead, He fought the enemy with the Word of God. It is druing these time when we feel at our weakest that we are to stand on the Word of God. It is our sword to fight off the enemy. If the enemy can whisper lies to us, why can't we proclaim the Word of God right back to him?

How many times have you blamed God for your shortcommings or reasoned within yourself that if God didn't want it to be so that He wouldn't have allowed it? God can not and will not tempt us with evil. When we do wrong, it's because deep down insde we want to do wrong. The minute the thought runs through our brains and we do not rebuke and dismiss it, we allow that "thing" to grow within us until the point it becomes a desire. Once we desire to do wrong this is sin and ultimately sin seperates us from God and leads to death.

However, we have a choice. When we are tempted we can chose to be blessed or we can chose to give into the lusts of the flesh. We can walk in the Spirit so that we do not fufil the lusts of the flesh and perserver through the temptation or we can surrender to sin.

Shanita Waters
By His Stripes We Are Healed, Author
www.waterplantgrowth.com