Resisting Temptation

Finding the Power to Live a Godly Life

Essay #4, Biblical Sexuality

“Where does the power come from to see the race to its end? From within.”

—Eric Liddell (b. 1902, d. 1945), international rugby star, Olympic medalist,  missionary to China

I hope this essay will be practical and encouraging by considering the Bible’s guidance on fighting sexual temptation. Since we don’t always resist as we should, I close with looking at how to deal with failure.

WE NEED PHYSICAL POWER TO FIGHT PHYSICAL TEMPTATIONS

The Scottish runner Eric Liddell said he found the strength to finish a race “within.” A secular person might take that to mean willpower, but Liddell, a devout Christian, was speaking of God’s strength. He spoke of a power that yielded physical results. It was a power that enabled him to blow past the competition in the 1924 Paris Olympics, winning the 400m race when he’d trained to win a much shorter race, the 100m. (He dropped out of the 100m because the heats were on Sunday, and he wouldn’t compete on the Lord’s Day.) God’s power—in his body—enabled him to win in the Olympics, putting him on front pages across the world.

Does the Bible teach that God’s power can affect us physically, not just mentally? I believe it does. The warrior David wrote in Psalm 18 that God gave him strength to rush the enemy line and even to leap over a wall. He even speaks of God as his personal trainer. The psalm begins, “I love you, O Lord, my strength.” A lengthy psalm, it includes these words: “For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. … [God] equipped me with strength…. He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.” (Ps. 18:29, 32, 34 ESV)

God’s spirit provides the power we need to resist or run from temptation. “For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.” (2 Tim. 1:7 HCSB) His spirit is one of power. Sexual desire is an intense, physical experience that we can resist and flee with God’s power.  How do we experience that power? By faith.

WE CAN’T SURRENDER WITHOUT FAITH

It takes faith to surrender your body to the Lord. It takes faith to believe that obeying God will turn out for your good.

God is ready and willing to give us the power we need to be obedient. “Everything we could ever need for life and complete devotion to God has already been deposited in us by his divine power.” (2 Pet. 1:3 TPT)

But like the familiar illustration of the bank check (God has written the check but we have to cash it), obedience takes faith. We can’t collect on God’s promise of power until we present it to the bank of heaven. This takes faith. If we keep the promise in our pocket because of doubt, it won’t do us any good. Instead, we must believe “that he rewards those who seek him.” (Heb. 11:6 ESV)

Many of Paul’s letters explain what obedience looks like. In his letter to Rome, he writes that he was appointed an apostle “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations” (Rom. 1:6 ESV). In the letter’s closing doxology, he praises God for the gospel’s purpose, “to bring about the obedience of faith.” (Rom. 16:26)

This is a very, very deep idea, and I hear little teaching on it in the American church today. When the Lord calls you to do something hard, you have to reach deep into your heart and soul to find the faith to obey him. Take something as simple as forgiving when you don’t feel like it. You can give lip service, sure, or do it because you’re supposed to. Or you can do it by faith, in the presence of the Holy Spirit within you, to cancel the debt and give grace to the person who harmed you.

Bringing our bodies, minds, souls, and spirits into alignment with godliness takes faith, especially regarding our sexual desires.

THROUGH SURRENDER, WE RECEIVE HIS POWER    

“Victory over all the circumstances of life comes not by might, nor by power, but by a practical confidence in God and by allowing His Spirit to dwell in our hearts and control our actions and emotions.” ~ Eric Liddell

Although we rarely feel we have control in the midst of powerful temptation, Paul says that we do. Consider this no-nonsense advice he gave the Christians in Rome: “Never let sin rule your physical body so that you obey its desires. Never offer any part of your body to sin’s power. No part of your body should ever be used to do any ungodly thing. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have come back from death and are now alive. Offer all the parts of your body to God. Use them to do everything that God approves of.” (Rom. 6:12-13 GW)

Other versions translate the word “offer” as yield, present, give, and surrender. 

I once surrendered myself and had a powerful, physical experience. I was in the grip of intense feelings towards a man. He flirted with me; I flirted with him; we were both single Christians. We had chemistry. Although I was free to pursue the relationship, something didn’t feel right. I sensed I was on a dangerous path. However, it was so much fun I resisted self-examination. Finally, in a sheer act of submission, I got down on my knees and offered myself and this relationship to the Lord. I don’t know how to explain what happened, but it was as if a spell was immediately broken.

I’m not suggesting this sort of thing happens all the time or that getting on one’s knees is some kind of magic trick; I’m simply sharing the dramatic and instantaneous change I experienced. When I surrendered, the grip of those passions broke. God’s power came over me and I felt liberated from a strong force. In time, this man and I went our separate ways.

OBEDIENCE IS SIMILAR TO BECOMING A CHRISTIAN

You may wonder, how do I get the power to be obedient? What if I don’t want to be obedient? Well ask yourself, how did I become a Christian? It’s the same process. First, you see Jesus. Then you see who you are. As a result, you pray. Forgive me. Help me. Take me. This is what faith looks like in the struggle to be obedient.

HOW TO AVOID DUMB MISTAKES

In the June 2019 issue of Tabletalk, a devotional magazine from Ligonier Ministries, Robert VanDoodewaard writes about the biblical metaphor of sheep. He notes, “we find many humbling texts that compare believers to sheep.” Sheep do dumb things, so it’s humbling to be compared to them. Both the Old and New Testaments describe God’s people as sheep.

If we accept the fact that we’re inclined to do dumb things, it’s easier to listen to advice. Did you know the Bible has practical advice for avoiding sexual sin? Here are some of my favorites. A few don’t address sex directly but are applicable.

• “Stay far away from her. Do not even go near her door.” (Prov. 5:8 NOG)

            Avoid the company of someone who’s attracted to you or trying to draw you into a relationship. Don’t even get close to their door. How practical! Whether a physical door on a house, a lobby door going into an office building, or the virtual “door” of a screen. Have you ever thought about the fact that Microsoft’s graphical operating system is called “windows”? That you can peek into places via a screen? Stay away.

• “Flee from youthful passions” (2 Tim. 2:22 CSB),

            Run, do not walk. Other translations of “flee” include: run away from, shun, stay away from, and avoid. The New Living Translation puts it this way: “Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts.”

• “He who separates himself indulges his desires and shows contempt for sound advice of any kind.” (Prov. 18:1 CJB)

            Don’t isolate yourself. To indulge, it’s necessary to separate from those who question our behavior. I’ve seen this happen again and again to women trapped in affairs. By the time the affair comes to light, stubbornness has set in. The person shows “contempt for sound advice of any kind.”

• “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7 KJV)

            As unlikely as it seems in the moment, resistance brings an end to supernatural interference.

• “We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:5 NASB)

            You have to catch something to lock it up where it can’t do harm. So take those thoughts captive. Don’t let them hold up the bank of God’s promises and steal your confidence.

• “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” (Col. 3:2 ESV)

            To “set your mind” is to focus. It’s particularly helpful to focus on “things that are above,” which include the Lord and heaven. Years ago I memorized the last two chapters of the Bible, and those descriptions of the kingdom to come have often settled my heart in times of trouble. There are many wonderful tools you can use to build up your spiritual muscles in this way: fruits of the spirit, aspects of God’s character, the words of Jesus to women, and a list of praises from the psalms.

Last of all, here’s my personal advice: Distract yourself. This is a strategy used in addiction recovery because a healthy distraction pulls your attention away from a strong urge. A sport or other physical activity can be helpful, especially one that’s physically demanding or exhilarating.  

WHAT TO DO WITH FAILURE

Unfortunately, we don’t have a perfect track record of seeing Jesus, realizing our sin, and surrendering in faith. We fail. It can take a number of failures and missteps before we truly surrender in an area. As Paul wrote in Romans 7, “I do not understand my own actions. …I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.”

We’re incredibly blessed that God is patient and merciful. I love Jesus’s answer to Peter, who asked how many times he had to forgive a friend who sinned against him. Picking a number that must have seemed like the most anyone could tolerate, he asked, “As many as seven times?” (Matt. 18:22 ESV) Jesus’s shocking answer, “seventy-seven times,” reflects God’s heart of mercy.

As a father, God wants our obedience to come from faith. He wants us to believe that he’ll provide the strength we need. He could make us robots, but who wants a kid like that? Like a good parent, God warns us and then allows us to learn. He lets us find out why a bad idea is a bad idea. In terms of sexual sin, sometimes these lessons cost marriages, health, or financial assets. 

If we ignore God’s law, we’ll not only experience consequences, but we’ll have regrets. In this passage from Proverbs, a dad tries to get his son to understand what adultery will cost him: “At the end of your life, you will be sad that you ruined your health and lost everything you had. Then you will say, ‘Why didn’t I listen to my parents? Why didn’t I pay attention to my teachers? I didn’t want to be disciplined. I refused to be corrected. So now I have suffered through just about every kind of trouble anyone can have, and everyone knows it.’” (vv. 11-14 ERV)

Sadly, many Christians don’t heed God’s law. According to a 2017 report by the CDC, more than half of U.S. teens have had intercourse by age 18. Half. The older the population, the higher the percentage. It’s a statistical fact that most of us have violated God’s law by having sex outside of marriage.

We’ve caused the Lord grief. Where do we go with that?    

We go to our Lord Jesus. Scripture teaches he’s our high priest, the one who understands the hardship of temptation: “he himself has shared fully in all our experience of temptation, except that he never sinned.” (Heb. 4:15 PHILLIPS) Think about it—is it harder to resist temptation or to sin? It’s way harder to resist, which tells us that our Lord went through agony. The Bible says he learned obedience through the things that he suffered (Heb. 5:8). Surely sexual temptation was something he suffered.

His resistance did not make him judgmental, but rather, compassionate toward us. He sits on a throne of grace. This, too, is beyond my comprehension. The writer of Hebrews urges us to go to that throne, where Jesus is giving mercy. “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with fullest confidence, that we may receive mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need.” (v. 16)

When we fail, we need mercy. When we’re under pressure, we need help. Not yesterday or next week, but right now, in our hour of need. God has shown us where they are. Hallelujah!