Five Truths About TemptationSample

Truth #4

Temptations are normal, God-given desires that seek to trespass God’s boundaries.

What exactly are temptations?  The answer may surprise you because temptations are based upon the normal desires that God gave to all of us—but with one thing out of place—those desires seek to trespass the boundaries that God established for us.  

In other words, a temptation is simply a good desire gone bad! 

Our God-given desires become temptations when we desire too much, or too far, or in the wrong place or with the wrong person. Temptations are simply the inner push for our normal desires to overstep God’s boundaries.  Often the Bible calls our sins a trespass, which means to go beyond a clear boundary into forbidden or off-limits territory.  

Every single temptation is rooted in a normal desire. God Himself gave us our desires and wants us to learn through experience to honor and obey His stated boundaries. 

Take the normal desire to eat for instance.  God created food for mankind to eat and put in each of us a desire to eat.  We feel hunger which is the result of our God-given desire to eat.  When then does our desire to eat become a temptation? When we succumb to the desire to eat too much and move into the sin of gluttony.  Temptation is simply the desire to eat pushed too far, beyond the boundaries of self-control that God desires. 

The New Testament word “desire” is translated from the Greek verb epithymeo.  This Greek word is translated desire 8X, covet 3X, lust 3X, lust after 1X.  How then do we know what to translate the single Greek word—desire or lust?  Take a look at the following two verses which have eipthymeo but used in very different ways, one “desire” and the other “lust.”   

This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. 

1 Timothy 3:1

But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 

Matthew 5:28

The translators knew that the root epithymeo means to “desire” in normal usage (desiring to be a bishop is a good thing), but when that desire focuses on an unhealthy or sinful object, then they translated it with the word “lust.” Lust is simply strong desire, but when that strong desire is for an inappropriate action such as adultery, then epithymeo is better translated lust.  

The same word epithymeo is also translated in the King James by the word “covet” even though the word still means desire.  For instance, Paul writes in Acts 20:33 

I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel.

Why does the Bible translate “desire” as “covet”? Simply because the desire was focused on desiring the property that didn’t belong to him. 

These illustrations all prove the point that temptations are simply normal desires that entice us to go beyond the boundaries that God established for all of us. Every single temptation you will ever experience are all based upon normal desires. When you deny your desires from going too far or too fast, you don’t sin.  Since temptations are simply God-given desires, they aren’t sinful but normal.  What you and I do with our desires, however, determines if we walk in obedience or stray into disobedience.