It's not God tempting you (Francis Chan)

It’s not God tempting you, it’s something inside of you that longs for these things that are outside of God. Whenever you’re tempted don’t you dare blame it on God. Simple rule, whenever you’re tempted, it’s your fault.

• We blame it on the people around us, on God, on our genes, on our personality. We just want people to come to us and tell us that it is not our fault. But when we read the bible, it says it’s our fault.

• ‘Enticed’’. Means drawing a fish away from retreat. Satan is doing everything to entice you out of this place. With the hooks covered up with the worm, we can’t see it. Once in awhile we’re wise enough not to take the bait. So satan switches up the baits. But satan doesn’t have one bait at once, they’re all around.

James 1:13-18

What can we do?

• Don’t run away and close our eyes on temptations

• Fix our eyes on Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. So focused until we lose sight of everything else.

• V15. We’re going to see things that catch our eyes. Do we encourage and stare at it, or turn and fix our eyes on Jesus. We ‘miss the mark’ not because we miss the bull's eye but cause we were aiming at something else.

• V15. Sin is like a picture of a baby developing in the womb but when you give birth, it’s a stillborn child. All these hope that it is going to bring so much joy, all the anticipation. “All of that and this is all I am left with? A still born child and the pain and the grief. But it all seemed so good i thought that everything was developing and growing. A broken cistern, an empty well. And i left That, my Love, my Provider. And I left all of that for this?”

• V16. Don’t go for all those bait. Because it ends in death.

1. Have we been nibbling on the bait, are we being pulled away.

2. Don’t be fooled. Don't be deceived. It’s never going to work out. It never have in the history of this planet and you won’t be the first one.

3. Walk away from whatever temptation, just for this one reason: God is better.