When facing temptation, don’t entertain it and don’t determine to fight it on your own. To do so is to have to focus on it with your own strength, rather than calling on the Lord.
God wants us to look to Jesus for victory; for apart from Him we can do nothing of true righteousness. Moreover, God has placed the responsibility on Jesus, not us, to take on the devil, temptation, and sin.
We need to stop struggling against sin in our own strength and surrender to Him within us who is more powerful than Satan, the ruler of this world. Doing this, surrendering to Jesus, is to put on the mind of Christ.
The following three steps conform with James 4: 7, 8; in which we’re told that the devil can be resisted by submitting to God.
- Prayerfully prepare to deal with temptation at the beginning of each day. The preparation is in making the faith statement that you will be delivered from any temptation because of the spiritual truth that having been crucified with and now raised with Christ, you are dead to sin and live unto God.
- When the temptation comes to you, call on Jesus, who lives in you, and who has proven to be a victor over sin. Give Him permission to confront the temptation before you.
- Surrender by listening to His thoughts; let His feelings affect you; and let your actions come from His motivation, which is hatred of sin.
The key to this working is twofold. First, we have to sincerely want deliverance and then ask for it. God will provide the escape. Looking back on the times I’ve failed or almost failed, it was always because I allowed myself to be carried away by my own lust, and I neglected to initially ask God for help.
Second, victory is achieved through surrender. I know that’s not the way of the world, but that’s the point. We want to do things God’s way, which almost always is opposite that of the ways of the world.
What we need to do is sit back and watch Master Jesus go to work. Let His perfect qualities show themselves through us. He knows how to win and is more than happy to fight our battles.