Message from Scripture: 12/20/2021

 

Our message from Scripture today is Jas. 1:14: “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.”

 

James wants his readers to understand Satan is a master at the art of deception. Temptations have two elements that attract us to them. First, they carry one away, meaning to draw or drag out, as from the right way one should be in. In addition, they entice us by that which one desires. This carries the idea of entrapment, baiting one with what one covets or craves.

 

The image I take from this description is that of a fisherman, who uses baits that look desirable to fish, which entices them to strike it. The lure, however, only hooks them into something that looks good, but isn’t. Once taken, they are dragged out of their watery environment to another one, which typically ends in their demise.

 

In this imagery, Satan catches us with what looks like the best, only for us to realize we’ve been snared with something artificial, not real, and taken by that which harms us. Satan never reveals the truth about his designs on us, and what the temptation actually accomplishes. How many lives have been destroyed by the sin people have yielded to? How much hurt has been caused? How many come to discover yielding to it only brings sorrow, pain, grief, and if persisted in, destruction?

 

If I carried this analogy further, the only way to be set free, released from the sin by which Satan has hooked us, is to know the truth and live by it, as Jesus said in John 8:32. He would go further in saying, “Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34). This is not what God desires for us! May we be committed to the truth of the gospel and remain free from the entrapment of sin, in the life Christ provides, which is the best way for us to live, now and eternally. Can you distinguish between the tricks of Satan, and the truth of God? Your soul depends on it. God bless.

 

 

Robert