By David ReayWednesday 18 Dec 2019LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 2 minutes
Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer. (THE MESSAGE)
We might occasionally hear people say God has sent some painful adversity on them so they can learn some hard lessons, or to strengthen their faith. This seriously distorts our view of God. He is never the source of pain or evil. It is not in his nature. To attribute a tragedy or even a setback to God is to misunderstand the way he works and who he is.
God may well allow pain or evil or tragedy. And as a result, he may help us strengthen our dependence on him. But this is quite different to our believing he actually is the source of such things. Any good results are by-products of the testing experience. Good may come out of bad but we dare not call the bad ‘good’.
And if we stumble and sin as a result of hardship, our text reminds us that we can’t blame God. He is not a cunning enemy out to trip us up or find us out. He is not trying to seduce us into doing wrong. It is not in his character.
If we succumb to testing and fail the test we can only point the finger at ourselves. We can’t blame God. As the old saying goes, we have met the enemy, and it is us.
Blessings
David