“Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” James 1:14, 15
I remember studying these verse several years ago and thinking that this is a situation when I would agree with abortion. I don’t mean that I’ve become pro-choice. I mean that if we’re on our way to giving birth to death, let’s abort that process! As we look at these verses, the first question we need to ask is, who is tempted? The answer is each one. Everyone. All of us. I’m guessing that isn’t a huge revelation to anyone. But here’s something that struck me – who does the tempting? That’s Satan’s job, isn’t it? Isn’t he the great tempter? Well, he is, but look again at verse 14. We’re enticed by our own evil desire. It starts with us. It starts with our longings, our cravings, our coveting things that we don’t currently have. Those things aren’t necessarily evil. It’s our desires that our evil. When we covet, when we’re jealous, we’re basically telling God that what He has supplied for us isn’t good enough. Once we have that in our hearts, it’s pretty easy for Satan to use our own evil desire to lead us away from God.
When we’ve allowed covetousness to take root in our hearts, we become dissatisfied, discontent with our current state in life. Instead of praising God, we tend to complain. It usually starts rather slowly. We begin to praise with a “yeah, but” tacked on. You know, we tell Him He’s an awesome God. Then we add, “Yeah, but if I could just have . . .” Pretty soon we’re concentrating more on what’s missing than on all He’s done for us. It may even turn into blaming God because He hasn’t given us whatever it is we think we need. Before we know it, that thing we’re coveting has become our god. Just think of how crazy that is. We’re worshipping something that we don’t have, or maybe it doesn’t even exist, instead of the amazing Lord of lords!
We could have aborted this process at any point, but if we still haven’t caught on to where this road is leading, this sin of replacing God with a false god will cause death. Notice that eternal death isn’t something that happens to us. It’s something our attitudes and actions have brought into being. This road to destruction begins and ends with us. It begins with our attitudes of craving something other than what we have. And it ends with those cravings, which we have allowed to become a god, bringing about eternal death.
Let me just say that we can covet more than things. We may be jealous of someone else’s house, car, clothes, etc. But there are so many other things we covet. It could be someone’s marriage that seems so perfect while our own is less than ideal, or maybe non-existent. It could be trips others get to take to far-away places, or a talent someone else has, or a position you’ve always wanted. The list goes on and one. I encourage each of us to lay our hearts open before God and ask Him to show us the areas where we can be most easily enticed. Then give Him those desires. Don’t let them lead you to death. Instead, share them with the One who loves you perfectly and will gently and lovingly fill your heart with the kind of joy and contentment that won’t be found with anything else on this earth.