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. 1 Corinthians 10:13 (ESV)
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)
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Dive Deeper:
Our God is faithful to provide the means to escape that which separates us from Him. What a gift this is because without His grace and intervention, without Him giving a portion of His enduring strength, we would be hopeless in our battle against sin.
We look to the story of the Israelites that Paul calls our attention to in the preceding verses. Generation after generation, the Israelites were richly blessed by their Creator, although they repeatedly gave in to their temptation to worship idols. Doesn’t this sound familiar of you and me? God is repeatedly gracious to us daily, yet we still seek out things to take His place. We fixate on people, pleasures, entertainment, and anything to fill the God-sized hole in our hearts. We are under God’s grace as believers who have trusted in Christ, yet we fall numb to our desire to be obedient and put sin to death. Despite this tension, there is hope because God always provides a way out of sin for His children. As said before, this should invoke a response of gratitude and overwhelming praise that we are not left to fend for ourselves against sin.
Christ is our way of escape, He is our safe refuge, and He is our strength. These are life-changing attributes of our King, ones that cause repentance that changes the course of our life. Our life that was once full of sin, brokenness, and despair can now produce light and life abundantly, not by our power and strength, but by Christ’s. The mark of a true believer is not one who has become better or who has withstood sin, but instead the one who admits he can’t and turns to the one who can. A believer stands strong against temptation, not because she herself is strong, but because she has the God of angel armies on her side. The Christian wins the battle against sin because the Christian has Christ.
By God’s grace, let us work to be faithful to our Creator in fighting our adulterous desires toward sin as He is faithful to us in providing a way out. Not only has He provided a way to battle the temptations that we face here, but He is our way out, and there is a faithful and eternal deliverance waiting for God’s children on the other side of this life.
“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” - John 6:40