July 20, 2010
Corinthians 10
Pastor Luke Lang
“The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.” 1 Corinthians 10:13
I was about six years old, at a small Baptist church in Oklahoma, when I learned a powerful lesson about temptation. Needing a few dollars to buy a toy that I couldn’t live without, there it was, suddenly staring me in the face. It was a five-dollar bill sitting in the offering plate. Surely this was God’s creative provision. Thinking that no one was watching, I reached out and quickly grabbed it. However, someone was watching. Along with my Heavenly Father, my earthly father saw it (at the time, I didn’t know that he had planned to buy the toy for me on the way home from church). When we got home, I got a blistering lesson about how it’s not right to steal from God (or anybody else). I also learned that it hurts to give in to temptation!
Since I work with teenagers, I find myself talking about temptation a lot. Yet temptation is not just a teenage problem. It might look very different at different seasons in our life, but we never outgrow it.
We need to realize that temptation, at its core, is almost always a shortcut to what God has planned for us already. Jesus was tempted by satan with a shortcut to kingship, and the enemy tries to pull the same old tired stuff with us. He offers a shortcut that seems quick and easy. It’s a shortcut to meeting a need that God, because of His amazing love, has a perfect way to meet. When we give in to temptation, we accept a cheap imitation that will cost us everything!
We need to realize that God is greater than any temptation. He promises to provide, just according to His timetable, not necessarily ours. It’s a question of maturity. Do we have the maturity to wait for God’s best?
It’s also exciting that God always gives us an escape hatch. He shows us how to “get out of Dodge” by just turning around, walking away and waiting on Him to do His thing.
With more than two decades of youth ministry experience, Luke Lang leads “The Tribe” ministry to middle school students at Grace Covenant Church.
