Trust God in Temptation as an Intentional Act of Faith
James 1:14-18
Part of Intentional Acts of Faith—The book of James
February 7, 2021
James 1:13-18
1:13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;
14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.
15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
leads to bad decisions.
is a process of deception that leads to a bad decision called sin (vv. 14-15).
temptations deceive you by offering pleasure outside of God’s will (v. 14: “dragged away”).
Your sin nature deceives you by responding with
to external temptations (v. 14: “enticed”).
When your internal desire to sin responds to an external opportunity to sin, a destructive process
(v. 15).
Trusting God is essential to
the deception of temptation (vv. 16-17).
God commands us not to be
by temptation (v. 16).
God reminds us that he, not sin, is the
of good things in life (v. 17).