During the height of the Cold War, a former FBI agent wrote a book about Soviet spies and how the KGB would tempt workers in the FBI and CIA and in the military to spy for them. The KGB would never start by approaching and asking him or her to steal “top secret” documents.

Instead, they would start with something innocuous like an office telephone directory. No big deal. It was something the American worker could justify because it was public information. But it would still be a thrill, and it would put extra spending money in the their pocket. By starting with something small, and something innocent, the American would gradually be hooked into doing it again. Next time it was a file. Then it was something confidential, then it was something very secret. But that would come later. At the beginning, it would be nothing more than a telephone directory. No big deal. And so it is with temptation.

The problem wasn’t that the federal worker was tempted. The problems always began because the worker forgot who they worked for. And, in essence, they began to forget who they were.

And that’s where we fall also. We think of temptation as being confronted with an opportunity to do something we shouldn’t. In reality, temptation has less to do with deciding whether or not to do something we shouldn’t, as much as it has to do with forgetting who we are. It is when we forget who we are that we fall.

The man in an act of adultery forgets he’s a husband and a father. The athlete who is arrested for soliciting a prostitute forgets he is a role model, and that his teammates depend on him. And when Christians give in to temptation it’s because they forget that they are actually children of God, and that they belong to Him.

The next time that particular temptation comes along that always seems to get you, stand up and remember who you are and who you serve. That’s what Jesus did in the wilderness, and He knocked the devil flat.

In Christ,
Pastor Mike