A Unique Nature: Temptation and the Power of Sin over Us

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses,
but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15

As a kid, I was fascinated by magnets.

We had a few of them at home. The small round ones. The ones that looked like a bar. We even had a large horseshoe-shaped one. It was great fun to go around and find things I could pick up with that magnet, or put it close to a large piece of metal and feel it pull me toward it! Occasionally I would be caught by surprise, as I put it near or on something metal, only to see it fall off when I let go of the magnet. Why did it stick to some metal things and not to others? It would be years later before I would learn that magnets are attracted to ferrous metals, but not to non-ferrous ones. The magnet could not draw the non-ferrous metals to itself because there was nothing in the nature of the metal to be drawn to the magnet.

As I've walked my journey of faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ, I have (thankfully) grown in my understanding of Him. When I was young, I was taught (rightly) that God is holy and that He hates sin. My inaccurate extension of that was that He waited in heaven, watching me to see if I really meant that I loved Him, showing it by obeying what He commanded. And when I failed to do so, He must be looking down at me with disapproval, thinking "What a disappointment that boy is." I would really want to do well, but it would so often be so clear to me how far short of His standard of perfection I fell. I would be genuinely disappointed in myself. In my teen years I discovered the passage that the apostle Paul penned in Romans 7, where he writes in verse 15 "For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate." As I read that, I thought "Wow. That's me! You mean to say the apostle Paul struggles like this?!?"  In verse 19, he goes on to write "For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want."  "Exactly! Why am I so drawn to the thing I know is wrong, the thing I hate? And why, if I hate it, do I still find myself doing it?"

"Wow, that's me! You mean to say

even the apostle Paul struggled

like this?!?"

Finally in verse 21, Paul writes "I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good."  So I'm thinking "Hey, great! If Paul struggled with it, and he was such an amazing follower of Christ, then he must have found some solution!"  Reading on in verses 24 and 25, I find "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin."

What? No foolproof solution for the elimination of this problem? Just a recognition that, as long as I live on this earth in a human body, I will always face this battle? That seems to be precisely the conclusion Paul came to. How discouraging!

Or is it? Maybe I was missing something. You see, in the 35 or so years since that time, I have come to learn that there is far more to be learned in the process than in the actual destination. You see, in pondering all of this over the years, there are a number of insights that God has opened my eyes to.

This is what God says to me:

"There is nothing you can do that will make Me love you more, and there is nothing you can do that will make Me love you less."

1. The struggle teaches me the wonder of His grace. Contrary to the image I had of God as a young boy, God's love for me does not change based on my performance. We used to tell our son this so often during the last difficult years of his life, and it now occurs to me that this is what God says to me: "There is nothing you can do that will make Me love you more, and there is nothing you can do that will make Me love you less."  Regardless of my failings, my imperfections, my disobedience, God's love does not waver. Oh, rest assured He will deal with the sin! But there's the beauty of it; Romans 5:8 says "... while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Before I ever turned to Him in repentance, before I ever asked for His forgiveness, Christ had already paid whatever price needed to be paid, so that the offense between God and me was taken away and reconciliation was possible, if I would simply accept the gift of salvation being offered to me. I had to learn that  "The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness." (Lam. 3:22, 23) It is in the struggle that I discover that I have no strength to fight in myself; I need to be constantly connected to God and only then will I be able to "...do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phil. 4:13)  And I recognize that "...nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not." (Romans 7:18) Thus, the struggle teaches me that God's grace reaches out to me in love, regardless of my performance, and He will supply what I need to do what He calls me to do, if I will simply choose to live my life in communion with Him. Amazing grace!

2. The struggle teaches me humility and compassion. If God were to simply take away the struggle from me, I could see myself very easily becoming pompous and prideful, as I consider how truly wonderful and obedient a child of God I am! Oh, it's so far from the truth! And the humbling that occurs as I realize my own inability to do anything of value for God in my own strength allows me to show compassion toward those who also struggle, and fail, rather than to judge them. This is not to be confused with excusing or enabling their sins and failures; rather it is an opportunity to, gently and compassionately, redirect them to the One who can pick them up, forgive them and provide them with whatever they need to continue living for Him.

3. The struggle teaches me how truly "other" Jesus is.  Hebrews 4:15 says, "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin." (emphasis mine). I would sometimes get angry, discount the temptation for Jesus, thinking "Well, since He's God, it's not a temptation for Him anyway, so where's the challenge?"  I was seeing it all wrong. The fact that Jesus was tempted as we are, yet was without sin was not a demonstration of His amazing ability to stand up under the pressure of the pull of sin. Otherwise the lesson to us would simply be "You've got to try harder." You see, it's like the lesson of the magnet above: Sin had no ability to draw or tempt Jesus, because there was no sin in His nature to be attracted to a temptation. A magnet can be used to test whether a metal is of a ferrous nature or not. Similarly, temptations can be used to test whether we have a sin nature or not. Jesus did not respond to the temptation, which demonstrated that His nature is holiness. And the lesson to us is this: You can't fight this battle on your own, because your very nature is sinful. You need to constantly look to Me for help! But I'm also going to give you a new nature, one that desires holiness and is empowered by My Spirit! And someday, I'm going to renew you, so that your very sin nature is removed, and the very presence of sin is gone forever!

What an incredible promise for the one who has placed their faith in Jesus Christ! It begins even here: the more we commune with Him, the more we desire what He desires. As Romans 12:2 states, we will be "...transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."

And what about you, the reader who is not yet a follower of Jesus?  The amazing thing of it all is the lengths to which God was willing to go to make it possible for you to have that same freedom from the slavery of sin.  2 Corinthians 5:21 says that "God made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."  God dealt with our sin by placing all of our rejection of Him, all of our offenses against Him, all of our falling short of His perfect standard -- placing it all on His Son Jesus, the only perfect, sinless One and punishing Him for it, as if He had done it all!  And then He takes Jesus' perfection and places it on you, as if you had never done anything wrong! Why would He do such a crazy thing? Crazy love for you, that's why. All you have to do is take the gift!

I hope that's an offer that draws your heart to Him like ferrous metal to a magnet!