Being a Christian means being a warrior. Living the Christian life means constantly living with a wartime mentality. Paul uses the image of a soldier to describe the life of a believer in 2 Timothy 2:3-4, and he calls the Soldier-Christian to put on the whole armor of God in order to stand firm against the schemes of the devil in these evil days (Ephesians 6:10-17). But what is this battle? Where is the war that Christians face?

One of the battles that Christians must face is the one within. When it comes to temptation, the combat rages hottest inside our own hearts. In the book of James, we read, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin” (James 1:14-15). This verse paints the graphic picture that it is our desires and our lusts that literally seek to drag us away from what is good and right to practice that which is wrong and sinful.

In another key verse on temptation, Paul says, “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” (1 Corinthians 10:13). In the preceding verses (vv. 1-12), Paul speaks of idolatry and warns his readers against the evil of worshiping and serving something other than God. Then, in verse 14, Paul simply says, “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” Thus, the context of 1 Corinthians 10:13 is a warning against idolatry, which tells us that one foundational element of temptation is a drawing away from the Lord to love and serve something else.

As we unite these two passages together, we see that sin happens when we love and worship something more than God and that temptation to sin is not bound up in something external to us but comes from our internal desires. In other words, our inner desires point to something outside of us that we want, and when we want something too much, we get to the point where we are willing to go against what God says is good and right in order to fulfill our desire, which leads us to act sinfully. Thus, temptation is an internal, sinfully selfish desire for an external allurement.

However, coming back to 1 Corinthians 10:13, Paul provides us with divinely powerful weapons of truth that we can use in the war against temptation. First, this verse reminds us that we are not alone in our battle against temptation. The devil wants to keep us isolated in our sin and temptation, thinking that we are the only ones to struggle as we do and, in shame, to draw away from the Lord and from the body of Christ. But God wants us to know that others struggle as we do, and the temptation we face has been faced by Jesus (Hebrews 4:14). So let us come to Christ and surround ourselves with his church to find the comfort and strength we need.

Second, we read that “God is faithful.” This wonderful statement reminds us that God is faithful both to himself and to his promises. He is loving, gracious, and merciful (Ephesians 2:4), he is our Good Shepherd (Psalm 23), our Rock and our Refuge (Psalm 18:2), and the one who has promised never to leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). The Bible is full of evidence of God’s faithfulness. He has promised never again to destroy the world with water after the flood (Genesis 9:11), and he promised to send his Son to restore what sin had ruined (Genesis 3:15). And because God has been faithful to these promises and more, we can know that he will be faithful to the promises he makes here in 1 Corinthians 10:13.

Next, Paul says, “[God] will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.” This amazing promise communicates that God will never put you in a position where you will be forced to sin. God will not allow you to be in a situation where your only option is to sin. There will always be a righteous option no matter what circumstance you face. God abundantly supplies the grace you need to renounce ungodliness and to live godly in this present age (Titus 2:12).

Finally, God promises to give us what we need to win the war against temptation, whether that is providing a way to escape it or the strength to endure it. A great biblical example of endurance and escape is Joseph, who rebuffed the sexual advances of Potiphar’s wife, who tried day after day to get him to sleep with her. As a slave, he could not escape this temptation, but by the grace of God, his constant response was, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God” (39:9). Finally, one day, she trapped him in the house, grabbed him by his garment, and said, “Lie with me!” But Joseph jumped up, left his garment behind, and ran out of the house. Even though he was falsely accused after this event and thrown in prison, Joseph shows us what it looks like to both endure and escape temptation, especially sexual temptation, regardless of the consequences.

Christian, we are engaged in a war, and that war is raging within our hearts. The battle we face is between our love for God and our desires for that which is not God. We must decide if we are going to allow our desires to drag us into sin, or will we rest in the grace of God and cling to his promises that he is with us, that he is faithful, that he will protect us, and that he will give us what we need to overcome whatever temptation we face? May we, as good soldiers, march forward in faith as we follow our great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ!