– Mark Batterson in Win the Day

 

That quote has stuck with me since we first discussed it in our previous message series. If we really care about living God’s way, and not giving into temptation, there will be pain. It’s not a question of if, but when. It’s sometimes painful—and can even feel like a sacrifice—to do what God says, and to steer clear of what He says to avoid. But, again, if we truly want to live God’s way, it’s much more painful to give in to temptation and live with that regret. It will hurt either way, but one type of pain is worth it.

 

If temptations were easy to resist, they wouldn’t be tempting. But we know better; we know from too many personal experiences that overcoming our sinful desires is really, really hard. We see in the Bible that temptations are to be resisted (James 4:7), endured, and escaped (1 Corinthians 10:13). We also see that temptations cause suffering and we need help to overcome them (Hebrews 2:18). In addition, the ungodly desires that tempt us are harmful and can lead us into ruin and destruction (1 Timothy 6:9).

 

The writer of Hebrews encourages us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles,” and then a few verses later, we’re reminded that, “in [our] struggle against sin, [we] have not yet resisted to the point of shedding [our] blood” (Hebrews 12:4). That verse makes it clear that our efforts to overcome sin and temptation launch us into an extremely difficult and painful battle. It calls to mind the struggles of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, just before He was arrested and eventually crucified. He prayed to His Father, God, to take away His suffering, but then He said, “Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

 

Jesus’ soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, and He dealt with the most severe conflict with temptation that He had ever encountered. He experienced such anguish that as He prayed intensely, His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Or, you might say, His resistance to sin was so great that it forced His blood through his pores.

 

Of course, in Hebrews 12:2, we see that the unimaginable struggles of Jesus were worth it to Him. He endured the cross because of the joy set before Him. He chose the pain of present-tense discipline over the pain of future-tense regret. For those of us who follow Jesus, we can do the same. We will never have to endure the horrific suffering that Jesus endured, specifically because He already went through it for us. But we can follow His example and fight, with everything we have, against temptation and sin, knowing that while the battle is painful, it is more than worth it.

 

Troy Burns