Temptation is based on the lie that:
What is in front of you will be better than what God has planned for you.
And that is it… no more, no less.
We fall for it because we are already prepped for The REAL Thing God has planned for us.
But the truth of the matter is that the temptation will always fall short of the reward. It cannot replace the thing God designed and planned for you.
It can be bloody obvious… (the Excitement of an illicit affair) or very much altruistic in nature (If I have a big church, I can help more people…?) but I think you can always test it by the acts or decisions caused by Temptation:
Temptations always need to be justified, they do not “flow”… God’s provision will always work.
If I may be so bold as to completely misrepresent a verse from the Bible that refers to the source of a temptation to rather read it as a representation of all temptation, regardless of intent:
