Genesis: The Story of God's FaithfulnessShembull

OVERCOMING TEMPTATION 

Listen to the audio guide to hear the complete devotional with Scripture, teaching and a worship song! Find a condensed, written version of this devotional below: 

Think about a temptation that keeps showing up in your life. Now think about your effort to fight that temptation. What do you normally turn to? Your will-power? A friend? How has that been working?

The passage we just read is a story about a man named Lot who is surrounded by temptations, and he’s not doing a great job protecting himself against them. Lot lives in the town of Sodom, a town void of God’s people and ripe with temptations. God is so displeased with the sin of Sodom, which can be characterized by the overarching sin of pride, that he has decided to destroy it. In his compassion, God sends two angels into Sodom to warn Lot and his family that they are about to destroy the city. The angels tell Lot to take his family and leave. But, as verse 16 tells us, “Lot hesitated.” Lot doesn’t know if he wants to leave. His reaction to deliverance is luke-warm. 

In Lot’s struggle against these temptations, God intervenes. The angels seize the hands of Lot and his family and bring them out of the city because, as the passage says, “the compassion of the Lord was upon him.” God delivers Lot from his temptations despite his lukewarm faith. 

2 Peter chapter 2 applies this narrative to believers today. It says that if God rescued Lot, then he also knows how to rescue the godly from trials. Just as Lot’s rescue was not about his own strength to flee from Sodom, so our rescue is also not about our own strength. The power to overcome temptations comes from God’s compassionate deliverance through the Holy Spirit. 

So, when we face temptations, we can look to God, his power and his deliverance. He is stronger than our luke-warm faith. 

REFLECT: Identify a temptation you are facing right now. Reflect on God’s compassionate desire to deliver you. Pray and ask him to give you power to resist this temptation.