The struggle is real.  For those who have trusted in Christ, we have been given the victory of new life in Him by grace through faith.  But as any honest Christ-follower will tell you… there’s still an ongoing struggle against our sinful desires and tendencies.

I remember as a teenager wondering – would I ever be able to move past my lustful addiction to pornography?  It seemed to have such a stronghold over my life.  I read books, had accountability partners, downloaded accountability software for my computer, and tried all sorts of practical helps to seek to ‘get over’ that sin pattern in my life.  But it was like a vicious cycle wherein I would try harder and harder and right when I seemed to have some victory for a little while, I’d fall right back into sin.  All seemed hopeless, and I thought – “God, will I ever not sin like this?”

Maybe your ‘go-to’ tendency isn’t sexual sin.  Maybe yours involves food or substances or relationships or gossip or a million other things that you could feel enslaved to.  Maybe you’re like I was…feeling hopeless at continuing to lose the battle against temptation and wallowing in guilt.

Here’s the hope of the Gospel for all of us in overcoming temptation:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

1 Corinthians 10:13-14

I remember reading passages like this, and feeling even more hopeless…because I missed the point.  You see, sometimes, we as Christians can read a passage like this and think, “Well, God has made a way, and I am just an idiot who cannot seem to try hard enough.” Or worse yet, “Maybe my faith isn’t real, since I cannot seem to overcome this temptation. Or…maybe God himself isn’t real.”

The problem with how we typically think of overcoming temptation is that we believe it is something we are supposed to do in our own strength.  But look back at the verse – God is the active participant in this verse.  Our hope isn’t in our ability to grit our teeth and knuckle up and finally “GET IT RIGHT!” Our hope is in the fact that God is the one who is faithful – not us.  God is the one who won’t let us be tempted beyond our ability.  God is the one who provides the way of escape.

Too often, as we are battling our sin, we fix our eyes on ourselves and our sin.  But if that is where our attention is fixed, we are going to continue to be consumed by it.  Instead of navel-gazing, we need to look to something beyond ourselves. Something that captures our affections and attention and calls us to live for something bigger.  We need to be more overwhelmed by our God than by our sinful addictions.

And so we read this passage, and if you’re like me you go, “What is the way out?”  God is promising a way out – but what does that even mean?  What does that look like?  That’s where verse 14 is crucial.  We often leave it off when we quote this passage, but it is actually the heart behind it all.  “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” Did you catch that?  In your darkest moments.  At your lowest of lows.  In the heat of temptation overtaking you. When you’ve failed time and again…God calls you his beloved!  God doesn’t define you by your sin – he defines you by his relationship to you.

Because you have received Christ’s righteousness, in God’s eyes you are his beloved.  He isn’t looking down on you and shaking his head in disappointment or disgust.  He’s calling you by your name.  Your identity.  And THAT is the way out of temptation.  When we realize how loved we are…who God sees us to be in Christ…that is when we will overcome temptation.  Our heads, hearts, and hands have to be consumed by a bigger love and desire for God than we have for our sin.  And that comes from rejoicing in the hope that we have as his beloved.

The struggle is real.  But even MORE real is Christ in us, the hope of glory.