Temptation Comes From Our Own Desires

Remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. James 1:13-15

AS PARENTS, our instinct is to protect our kids from anything that might tempt them toward sin. If we could, we’d put up a fence between our home and the rest of the world. But this ignores an important reality. Sin has already infected our children. They were born with a preexisting condition. The greatest sinful influence on them is their own depravity. It’s the sin within them rather than the sin outside of them that we have to parent them through.

This means that all of our attempts to raise our children inside a safe, spiritual cocoon are useless because temptation operates inside the cocoon, inside our children’s hearts, at the level of their own desires.

So if building a wall around our children will not protect them from sin, is there anything we can do that will encourage them not to act sinfully upon their desires? We can create an atmosphere in our homes that continually exposes their emotions to what is “true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable” (Philippians 4:8). As these good things go to work in their minds, they will shape their emotions. They will strengthen them on the inside, impacting their desires so they won’t be so easily enticed and dragged into sin.

Lord, it is so easy to parent primarily out of fear, to be more afraid of Satan and the world getting their hands on ________ than to be confident in your faithfulness to finish the good work you have begun. So, Lord, keep working in ________ to sanctify ________’s thoughts and desires, and to give ________ a fighting chance in the battle against sin.