temptation on Envy

O Lord, my every sense, member, faculty, affection, is a snare to me. I can scarce open my eyes but I envy those above me, or despise those below. I covet the honor and riches of the mighty, and a...

In her thought-provoking book, Teach us to Want , Jen Pollock Michel describes the tension in listening to our deepest desires: some of them these desires are integral to our identity, but they a...

Leader: Heavenly Father, I confess that I have sinned against you. I have delighted my soul in other things more than I have in you. Why, then, is it any surprise to me that you feel far off from me? ...

In a sermon delivered at Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville, Tennessee, Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas turns his attention to the dangerous seduction of crowds: It is a terrible thing to fall...

The temptation once yielded to gains power. The crack in the embankment which lets a drop or two ooze through is soon a hole which lets out a flood.

Temptations are an appeal to meet righteous needs in an unrighteous way.

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.

The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.

All idols begin by offering great things for a very small price. All idols then fail, more and more consistently, to deliver on their original promises, while ratcheting up their demands, which initia...

Many deceptions only appeal to us because there is something inside us that "wants" to believe them. They are seductive because of darkness and wrong motives in our own lives. We must search...

Prayer of Adoration Great God our Father: You are good and You are strong. You are faithful and true, and You won’t tempt or lie to us. In a world that appeals to our sinful cravings and dominated b...

God delights in our temptations and yet hates them. He delights in them when they drive us to prayer; He hates them when they drive us to despair.

“No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from. ”

The Serpent held out to them the one thing they didn’t have, shouldn’t have, and could never have—God’s position. Taken from Awe: Why it Matters to Everything We Think, Say, and Do by Paul David Tripp...

Temptation is like a knife that may either cut the meat or the throat of a man; it may be his food or his poison, his exercise or his destruction.

O curse of marriage, that we can call these delicate creatures ours and not their appetites.

Our great Pattern hath showed us what our deportment ought to be in all suggestions and temptations. When the devil showed Him "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," to tempt...

Forgive us for our many sins. Like Eve, we are easily captivated by the objects that our eyes desire. We fall so often, and when we do, we run and hide in shame instead of running to you to confess ou...

Sin gets its power by persuading me to believe that I will be happier if I follow it. The power of all temptation is the prospect that it will make me happier.

Pastor: For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. All: For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the...

The essence of temptation is the invitation to live independently of God.

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? After the Baptism Jesus, still wet from his baptism in the Jordan. Jesus, with the affirmation of the Father still ringing in his ears...

The central plot device of The Lord of the Rings is the Dark Lord Sauron’s Ring of Power, which corrupts anyone who tries to use it, however good his or her intentions. The Ring is what Professor To...

The weaknesses we see in the people of the Bible are the very weaknesses we ought to recognize in ourselves. Like Eve, who ate the forbidden fruit, we are vulnerable to temptation when we act on our o...

Loving and faithful God, You are holy, righteous, and pure; You are compassionate and just; You are perfect in all of Your ways. But we have slipped away from Your will; we have been selfish and self-...

For years Kyle and I [Jamin Goggin] had no trouble looking critically upon others in their quest for power. We bemoaned the rock-star pastors who were in the spotlight, whose churches appeared to be m...

To realize God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation.

Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, as we gather for worship we invite you to come down and meet with us. The desires, distractions, thoughts and temptations that plague us are already known to you and...

If I were making a list of benefits like the one Mike McKinley imagines, only this time using the devil’s actual logic, it might look more like this: Experience the excitement of new romance. Get th...