The Struggle of Temptation and How to Overcome It

It can be discouraging that after we come to Christ and start to seriously pursue righteousness for months, years or decades that temptations to sin do not stop. If we are in a season of particularly challenging temptations, it may feel as if God is not even with us anymore and that He has left us to fight our battles on our own. Perhaps the most encouraging message from the Bible about our battle with temptation comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:13:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

We are going to see in this verse that Paul gives us promises and provisions regarding temptation.

Promises

Look over that verse slowly and see what promise Paul is giving us about temptation – God is sovereign over it. We will look at that truth in two specific ways.

First Paul says, “God will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.” This means that God knows what you can and cannot resist and He will only permit temptations to come that He knows you can resist. Based on our personal struggles, certain temptations will be incredibly hard to fight; it may even seem that some are too hard to overcome. But Paul reassures us that is not the case. There may be some temptations that Satan or others want to throw at us that are too much for us, but God will not permit those to reach us.

In the providence of God, temptations are tests. The apostle James says it this way, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one (James 1:13).” James is saying that when God allows temptations to come our way, He’s not doing it to entice us to sin or to make us fall. The temptation is more of a trial – or test – designed to strengthen our faith when we endure it.

Think of it like this. Good teachers prepare their students for every test and give fair tests; a good teacher will not ask their students questions about things that were not taught or try to trick students to answer incorrectly. Good teachers want to see the students pass their tests.

The second way Paul points to God’s sovereignty over temptation is by saying that God will “provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” These two promises go hand in hand. God will permit us to only face temptations He knows we can overcome by providing the way for us to overcome each one. If we keep this verse in mind when we are in a moment of a strong temptation, we can actively look for the escape from it. When we do this, we can be confident that God has already made a way even in the most challenging temptation.

An obvious question to ask is “why do I fail at resisting temptation so often?” Let us take a closer look at the phrase “may be able to endure it.” The phrase “may be” translates a word that speaks to ability. In other words, Paul is saying that we have the capability to endure the temptation. While we do have the capacity to resist, in our sin nature we sometimes choose to reject the escape. We give into temptations by choice, not because we cannot endure them.

Provisions

Together these two assurances of God’s sovereignty over temptation form a very powerful prayer to pray. We pray trusting that God will only allow temptations to come our way that we can endure, and we pray asking God to help us make the choice to escape and endure the temptation.
How does God provide the escape from our temptations? He often works in simple ways as the verse says – providing an escape. Rather than encouraging us to boldly go into a tempting situation to see if we can endure it, Paul repeatedly tells us to flee from all forms of temptation to sin (1 Corinthians 6:18, 1 Timothy 6:11, 2 Timothy 2:22).

Perhaps the most famous biblical illustration of this truth is Joseph with Potiphar’s wife.

After being attacked and sold by his brothers, Joseph was sold to the Egyptian official Potiphar where he was made overseer of the house (Genesis 37:23-24, 28; 39:1, 4). Joseph was about seventeen years old and was “handsome in form and appearance (Genesis 37:2, 39:6).” As a result, he was seduced by Potiphar’s wife repeatedly, but he always refused saying, “how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God (Genesis 39:9-10)?”

Her final seduction happened when Joseph was in the house alone with her. She grabbed some part of Joseph’s garment and told him to lie in bed with her. He immediately ran away, leaving his garment in her hands (Genesis 39:13). Joseph knew that if he stayed, he risked giving into temptation and instead he fled temptation, no matter the consequence.

Escaping can look different for different circumstances. It can be not surfing the web when you are alone and finding something offline that you enjoy if you struggle with pornography. It can be cutting certain friends out of your life if they encourage you to do things you do not want to do.

I do not mean to oversimplify and suggest that these are easy things to do. But I do believe that praying 1 Corinthians 10:13 to God by thanking Him for the promises of His sovereignty and asking Him to reveal the provision of how to endure, that through His grace you will start to see more victory over the temptations that you face.