Why You Can't Resist Temptation(and what to do about it).

   As a young teenager growing up around my grandmother, I had never seen her come home troubled. She regularly went to church on Sundays and on weekdays she would go to church meetings. One day though, after a weekday church meeting, she came home all troubled. 


I asked myself what was going on. As I saw her coming from the distant, I noticed her muttering some words which as she approached the house became loud enough for me to discern.
   
         Satan get behind me, Satan get behind me!

It shocked and surprised me that she was coming home defending herself by telling satan to get behind her. But it all happened for a reason. As she was in the church meeting, through prayers it came to be revealed to her that someone was about to pick a quarrel with her and that in order to avoid that confrontation, she should say the words 

    Satan get behind me!

Throughout that day,and any time she felt the temptation to respond to the quarrel, she would say those words. It was a real eye-opener for me because I had never seen my grandmother like that before. 

She wouldn't keep quiet over the least provocation and would make her voice heard. But on this particular day, she just had to resist the temptation of responding to the quarrel that was being thrown at her.

Most people can't resist temptation when it comes. Because when it comes, it doesn't come to make you feel better, but to put you in a state of doubt and in a state in which you question why you are even making resistance. 

And once it leaves you in that state it then tries to bend you onto it's side. When you have finally fallen for it, it leaves you in a state in which you ask yourself how you got to that state in the first place.

 Temptation is a threat and it's biggest threat to anyone is it's ability to weaken any firm point that that person has. It digs deep down into the conviction that you and I have over a particular subject and questions that conviction.This is the more reason why so many people fall back into the things that they were once doing, that they had decided they won't be doing anymore.  

This is because temptation questions our conviction but doesn't stop there. It goes further than that by imploring our needs for fulfillment, for curiosity, our need to give something just one more try, and so on. 

This was the more reason why the serpent in the Genesis story was able to convince Eve into submitting to his wishes to eat from the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.


In Genesis chapter 3 we learn that


1   Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field 
  which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, 
  hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2  And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of 
  the trees of the garden:

3  But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, 
 God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, 
 lest ye die.

4  And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5  For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes 
 shall be opened,and ye shall be as gods,knowing good and evil.

What the serpent promised was knowledge and the ability to become wise-that is the abilility to discern good from evil. This was something new to Eve and since she had no knowledge of what it was like having that kind of knowledge, she decided to give it a try. 

In verse 6 of the same chapter we learn that,

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, 
  and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired 
  to make one wise,she took of the fruit thereof,and did eat, 
  and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they
  were naked;and they sewed fig leaves together,and made 
  themselves aprons.

This is how temptation works. it makes sure it gets hold of your inability to think beyond what you know. It also makes sure you are curious about exploring that which you don't know.It tries to feed on your insufficiency,

 that is where you need fulfillment. And once it has taken hold of you, your whole life at that point can take a different turn,a turn which you least expect.This is why it is hard to resist temptation. 

 As Christians, following the ways of the Lord doesn't mean we can't be tempted or we are free from temptation. What it means is that we have to our benefit, the power of resisting temptation no matter how hard it is or how the urge to fall for the temptation is,

 by doing exactly what Christ did when He was taken to the top of the mountain and was shown all the kingdoms of the world.

He also rebuked the tempter and set Himself free from further temptation. In Luke chapter 4 vs 8 we are told,

 8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: 
  for it is  written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him 
  only shalt thou serve.

Following what Jesus did, we too can also muster up enough courage to resist any kind of temptation no matter how strong it pulls us towards it, and no matter how weak we are in resisting it.

 At such times we only need to put our faith in the Lord and He will do His work to make us resist the urge to fall for the temptation.