Temptation everywhere.

Remember when you walked down the midway at the carnival, where the games are? Remember all of the carnies yelling at you from all directions? "Just knock three down and win a prize!" "C'mon big fella! Win a prize for the little lady!" "Just put the ball in the hoop! It's easy!" …Ah, the ball in the hoop. The basketballs are too full of air. The hoops are smashed to an oval and 40 feet high in the clouds. The odds are against you. You get three balls for $5.00. Maybe, by some divine intervention, you make one. You get to take your pick between some scary looking stuffed animal, and a rubber basketball with a college logo on it. Either prize is destined for your next garage sale with a $0.05 sticker on it.

All this to say some days I feel that when I walk out of my house I am back in the midway. Only this time it is temptation yelling at me from every direction. Trying to sucker me in. "Get angry!" "Curse!" "Check out that woman!" "Want more stuff!" "Take a shot of tequila!" "Be lazy!" "Over commit!" "Flip off that guy that just cut you off!" "Beat him up!" " You can take him!" "Murder that person with your words!" "Destroy them with your tongue!" Ok, I got carried away…but seriously, there are some days when I just feel the odds are stacked against me. Like my path is laced with hundreds of land mines and every step I take finds one. I am blown up only to step into another temptation/land mine. Some days I get so discouraged that I just seek them out. I just look for temptation that I can allow to trap me. What the heck…if you can't beat them, join them.

It is these days that I forget that the battle is won. That my God is 10 for 10 from the free throw line, high, oval hoops and all.

There is nothing that I can't over come with Him.

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

If you are pursuing a relationship with Christ, there will be NO temptation that you together can't over come. I don't pretend to know what it is that tempts you: pornography, lust, vanity, working out too much or not enough, a short temper, stubbornness, infidelity, work, laziness, alcohol, designer labels and shopping malls…I have no idea. Maybe you are not even at a place in your life where you can identify your temptations. Think about it. What is keeping you from being the person that you could be? What consistently "trips" you up?

Many of us have prayed "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." This is a plea for help. Today pray that God would help you identify what it is in your life that is separating you from Him. Pray for victory over these things.

Proverbs 11:14 Where there is no guidance the people fall, But in abundance of counselors there is victory.

1 Chronicles 29:11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.

Today remember the playing field can be leveled. Rejoice in that!

Luke 8:13 "Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.

Make your roots deep by daily studying the Bible. Read it with a pen and paper in hand writing down your thoughts and anticipating God to reveal truth to you. This will sharpen your resistance of temptation. Think of it as training for a fight or a marathon.

2 Peter 2:9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!