The inevitability of sin

I have been thinking a lot about sin and temptation this past week because I preached about it on Sunday. One of the things that's been stirring in my mind is how the Enemy will do his best to make you (and me!) feel that sin is inevitable.

The temptation may be strong and you may be rejecting it.  Thoughts keep popping into your head.  Emotions are running amok and all over you like a steamroller.  Visions of you doing what you don't want to do play in 1080p Hi-Def on a 55" LCD screen in your mind.  The object of your obsession appears everywhere you look.  On and on.

And you may be winning that battle on all fronts.

So what does Satan do?  Give up?  Hardly.  He'll switch tactics and start whispering not a lie about the temptation itself but about your inability to resist it.  He'll start saying that's inevitable and you might as well give up.  It's going to happen, you and he both know it.  You've never held out before (even though you may have) and you won't now.  It's in your genes and you know how addictive your father or mother or sister or brother was or is.  And besides, you know you like it.

That's the lie he'll speak.

And we have to combat it with the Truth.  There is no temptation that has overtaken you but such as is common to man, and God faithfully provides a way out during the temptation every time (1 Cor. 10.13).  Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world (1 John 4.4).  Sin is pleasing for a moment, but only for a moment (Heb. 11.24-26).

Sin is NOT inevitable.  And every time Satan speaks, he lies.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...