temptation on Sexual Immorality

One common mistake is assuming that everyone else finds faith easy, while we alone struggle. Yet there is comfort in recognizing that we are not alone in our pursuit of Christ in the midst of a broken...

A source of the intensest pleasure earthlings can experience, sex has also been a source of vexatious trouble for the human family since the beginning of history.

Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the sixth commandment ( Thou shalt not commit adultery ) and the second half of our lives struggling with the fifth comma...

Think for a second what it would be like if Satan were to tell the truth when he tempted people? Could you picture what that would look like? Imagine if Satan tried to tempt us honestly; it might go s...

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...

Give me chastity and continency—but not yet!

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

In the early 1900s, a “respectable” woman wore an average of twenty-five pounds of clothing when she appeared in public. The sight of an ankle could cause scandal. Over the next hundred years the pend...

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...

We read of the temptations of Jesus, but we never hear of a confession of sin on his part. He never asked for forgiveness, though he told his followers to do so. This lack of any sense of moral failur...

In his excellent book on the desert fathers, Where God Happens , former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams tells of an encounter between two monastic fathers. The first was Macarius, famous in...

Temptations are never so dangerous as when they come to us in a religious garb.

Christian maturity is not indicated by the infrequency of temptation but by the infrequency of succumbing to temptation.

I’m not a big movie buff. I’ve seen my fair share, but if I have an evening free I’d rather read a book, play a game, or watch sports than take in a movie. My wife, on the other hand, likes movies, mo...

But let me point out something we almost always fail to notice. We can only be tempted to something that is good on some level, partially good, or good for some, or just good for us and not for others...

Augustine of Hippo's (63AD-114) Confessions is widely considered to be one of the most important books ever written, some consider it the world’s first biography. Augustine's early life was ch...

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-...

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...

In Easter Everywhere: A Memoir, Darcey Steinke recounts how she, the daughter of a Lutheran minister, left her Christian profession. Moving to New York City she entered a life of club hopping and se...

More than the arguments we can muster about the awful consequences upon us when we yield to temptation, the sight of what our sin caused our Savior to suffer should convince us to turn from sin’s path...

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...

Seduction is never ugly in appearance.

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

Pastor: Heavenly Father, save me from sin! I know I am righteous only through Jesus’ righteousness, but I greatly desire to be more like him! I am your child, so help me to resist the temptation to si...

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

The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.

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...

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.

My temptations have been my Masters in Divinity.

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