Harvest Daily with Greg Laurie
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
A Litmus Test for Temptation
“Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” —Matthew 26:41
If we could see our own temptation as clearly as we see that of others, it wouldn’t be all that hard to identify and avoid. Yet with ourselves, we are somehow able to rationalize our giving in to temptation.
Let me give you a couple of little principles to apply — a litmus test, if you will, to help you know if you are being enticed to evil. You can apply these two principles when you wonder, “Is this a temptation? Is this wrong?”
First, pray about it and bring it into the clear presence of God. When you are about to do something that you’re unsure about, pray, “Lord, can we ask your blessing on this? Lord, is this out of your will?” If you can’t pray about it with a good conscience, then it probably isn’t the will of God. You are probably putting yourself unnecessarily in the way of temptation.
Second, ask yourself the question, “How would this look if some other Christian gave in to it?” If you saw one of your Christian friends doing the thing you are presently doing, would you think it was odd or peculiar? Would you conclude that it doesn’t look right? If it doesn’t seem like the right thing for your friends to do, then you are probably doing the wrong thing as well.
Stop and think, watch what you are doing, and stop and pray. You will save yourself from giving in to temptation.
Copyright © 2006 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Bible text from the New King James Version is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions,
More by Greg Laurie: http://www.harvest.org/devotional/index.php/5.html
