Friday October 20, 2023
James 1:14
But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
Our soul life does not function normally during temptation.
Sin is not the normal thing in our soul-life. There is nothing so illogical, so meaningless, as sin. Yes, sin is the only meaningless thing within the confines of God’s whole creation.
For there is no reasonable ground for sinning, for disobeying the good will of God. There is only one reason for sin and that reason is our own wicked will.
In the hour of temptation the abnormal part of our soul-life becomes most clearly apparent. In our feelings, our intellect, and our will.
In our feelings a burning desire for the forbidden thing is kindled. The object of our desires becomes for the time being more important and of greater value than anything else in the world.
Temptation affects our intellect by lowering our powers of judgment. It lowers not only our moral powers, but our intellectual powers as well. Our ordinary faculties for judging values cease to function, and sin appears less and less dangerous. The “braking apparatus” of our intellect is completely disconnected. People who are most intelligent can in a brief moment of temptation commit the most impossible follies, follies which they oftentimes are compelled to look back upon with regret for a whole lifetime.
Upon our will temptation has a most paralyzing effect.
The many good resolutions which we make between periods of temptation in the ordinary course of our life melt like wax in the heat of temptation and run off between our fingers. Temptation makes us weak and feeble.
We are like drunken people. We put forth great efforts to raise ourselves up, only to succeed in rolling completely over.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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