Tempted to be Tempted
It has been said that people can resist anything but temptation. We know it’s true. It comes to us in so many forms, and it’s there every time we turn around.
We are tempted to be discouraged, tempted to murmur and complain, tempted to covet, tempted to doubt God, tempted to give up, or to give in.
In Genesis 39, Joseph is in Potiphar’s house. Before arriving there, he had been left in a pit to die, compliments of his jealous brothers, and then taken from the pit to be sold as a slave in Egypt. What things might he have already been tempted to do?
But then, in Potiphar’s house, it doesn’t take long until Potipher’s wife sets her sights on him, and we hear her saying to Joseph, “Lie with me.” Do you think Joseph was tempted? He was young; she was beautiful. All the men were out of the house that day (premeditated planning on her part no doubt). It was an opportune moment, but Joseph stayed strong. He fled, shrugging out of his cloak, and running for the door (the best thing we can do whenever tempted).
There’s no sin in being tempted; it’s the giving in that’s the sin. People who aren’t pure aren’t pure because they don’t think pure thoughts. This fact is without exception. Joseph was able to resist because he had kept his heart and mind stayed on God. He even said to Potipher’s wife, “How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9).
F. B. Meyer says in his book, Joseph: Beloved, Despised, Exalted, to expect temptation in the days of prosperity and to expect it to arise from the least expected place. He explains that the strength of temptation lies in the response of our nature to its suggestions. If our nature is spiritually strong, we stand a better chance of refusing the temptation. “It is said that the germs of the potato and vine disease are always floating in the air; but they can find no place of operation—no bed—in healthy plants. But when plants become degenerate and unable to resist their attacks, they sweep away the farmer’s hopes.”
This fact gives us hope that we too can resist temptations that the devil throws at us. It’s always a battle for the mind. The Apostle Paul admonishes in Philippians 4 what our thought life should look like:
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,
if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
