Advice on Resisting Temptation
Despite multiple warnings in Scripture on the craftiness of Satan (Gen 3:1) and his witty designs (2 Cor 2:11) and schemes (Eph 6:11) in which he disguises himself (2 Cor 11:14) and deceives the church (1 Tim 4:1), there’s not a lot of emphasis on the topic of resisting him in the church today. C.S. Lewis began his book on temptation with a warning about the “equal and opposite errors” of disbelieving the existence of demons, on the one hand, and feeling “an excessive and unhealthy interest in them,” on the other. Our age prefers to disbelieve and ignore.
In the history of the church, books have been written devoted to this topic, and I would be happy to recommend some. Here I simply want to share two insights that have helped me immensely in my own battle with temptation.
First, recognize that all temptation attacks you at the level of identity. Satan wants to cause confusion about who you really are. You can see this clearly both in the garden with Adam and Eve and in the wilderness with Jesus. In the garden, God created Adam and Eve in his own image (Gen 1:27). Yet the serpent promised them that eating the fruit from the forbidden tree would make them like God (Gen 3:5). Although they were already like God in all the ways God intended—and in all the ways that would benefit them—Satan tempts them to want more. He stirs up discontentment around the question of identity. It’s not enough to be created in his image. He suggests we need more. We need to rise above our creaturely limitations. We need to be gods. Our happiness depends on it.
Consider Jesus’s temptation in relationship to his baptism. At his baptism, God the Father announced, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). Yet Satan tempts Jesus to prove his identity as God’s Son by using his power for his own purposes (Luke 4:3, 9). To fall for Satan’s scheme, Jesus would have to deny God’s previous declaration. Jesus is not God’s Son because he can perform miracles. He is God’s Son eternally, but in his humanity his identity has been confirmed based on God’s declaration. Again, Satan attacks Jesus at the level of identity. He seeks to sow doubt and confusion around the question of who Jesus is.
Satan still does that today. Russell Moore points out that Satan can attack identity in one of two ways. First, he can make us think we’re exceptional. The rules don’t apply to me because I’m above it all. I can do whatever I want because I’m a god. Second, he tempts us to loathe ourselves. There’s no way I can be faithful, we tell ourselves. My situation is impossible. My circumstances are too bad. The rules don’t apply to me, not because I’m a god, but because I’m an animal. I’m destined to sin. I can’t help it.
Either way, the strategy is the same. He wants us to mistake our desires for our identity. He wants us to replace “I am who God says I am” with “I am what I want.” When we believe his deceit, we adopt a mindset that says, “I am only true to myself to the degree that I get what I want. I can’t be happy unless my desires are filled.”
The identity-attacking nature of temptation is why isolation is so dangerous. Community plays an enormous role in confirming identity and reminding us of who we really are. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit confirmed God the Son’s identity at his baptism. When I’m isolated, I’m susceptible to the lies. But when I go home, I face my wife and children as a Christian husband and father. When I worship on Sunday, I face the church as a brother in Christ and a Christian pastor. The expectations of the community prove pivotal in cementing my sense of who I really am.
Second, never try to fight temptation by wanting less. I often return to C.S. Lewis’s quote about the kid content to make mud pies in the nasty slum because he’s never imagined a vacation at the fancy beach resort. Satan works by dressing sin up and making it look appealing, alluring, and irresistible. He plays on the universal human Fear of Missing Out to make us content with mud pies in the slum.
We watch the ads of the smiling, happy people living the exciting life while we return home each day to what seems like the monotonous routine of our own lives. We scroll through the “stories” of the perfect woman with the perfect family and the perfect house as we exhaust ourselves trying to get a stubborn toddler to eat his lunch. Satan presents the temptation as the escape we need. He dresses it up as a harmless bit of fun. He wants us to believe we’re missing out on the good life.
Russell Moore writes, “There is no upper limit of fame that can ever satisfy those who crave it. There is no monetary figure at which those who long for financial success will ever be willing to say, ‘That’s enough.’ There is no orgasm that feels good enough to last you a lifetime. As temptation moves onward and inward, you become ‘insatiable for sin’ (2 Pet. 2:14). You’re caught.”
You will never fend off temptation if you believe Satan’s lies. God is not asking you to want less; he’s calling you to want more. He never asks you to surrender happiness; he invites you to find satisfaction in the only place it’s available—in communion with his Son. When you resist temptation, you’re not missing out. You’re choosing the greater. To sin is to settle. John Owen puts this truth in the form of a strategy: “Fill your affections with the cross of Christ, that there may be no room for sin.” That’s sound advice.
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