“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41
The only strength that God grants to us is through our confession of weakness.
Our flesh is weak.
When we're hurting is when we're most vulnerable to temptation.
Oh, how the enemy loves to inflict pain and then offer his remedies to enslave us. Oh, how the blood of Jesus Christ loves to heal our hearts and offer the greatness of his love to free us!
God doesn't command us to have a chest-beating, white knuckled stand-off with temptation. Because our flesh is weak, remaining in the presence of its danger is a tormenting and often slippery slope of pride. Because our flesh is weak, God, in his mercy, commands us to "flee temptation."
The loyalty of our hearts is most put to the test when the fleeing of temptation means fleeing tempters. Do we love Christ enough to obey him, even when it means walking away? Do we love him enough to endure temporary pain and loneliness on the narrow road for the sake of eternal security and honor?
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire." Matthew 18
God grants grace, not just to forgive sin, when we turn from it, but to obey him. His gift gives us strength for whatever it takes to "go and sin no more".
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But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12: 9-10
Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
2 Timothy 2:22
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household.
Matthew 10: 34 -36
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Hebrews 12: 4
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 4: 15 -16
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.
Matthew 19: 29