If the enemy is an effective tactician, we must understand that the devil is not above the kind of weaponry such as those used in chemical warfare–synthesizing weapons to devastate his opponents.
These are desires which the enemy will manipulate to entice you to fall:
- intimacy
- acceptance
The desire for intimacy and acceptance are normal human desires. They seem to be in the domain of the good world God created in Genesis 1 and 2. The world, the flesh and the devil will produce in the Christian a sense of loneliness and emptiness. Under these impressions, sexual temptation or release is enticing. Who wants to be actually alone? There is a difference between loneliness and solitude. I don’t think anyone wants to feel lonely.
When a Christian is under temptation, the enemy approaches the Christian from many sides to get him to fall. One approach the enemy takes is the devil evokes the dread of the Christian’s sense of loneliness. This is particularly effective in the sexual arena of desire because God has made human sexuality as a means to produce human intimacy. The devil takes advantage of this desire…he lures the Christian into a sin by promising a sense of intimacy and connection while disguising the fact the Christian is committing obvious sins against the law of God (Adultery, forninication, sexual immorality).
The following truth from God’s word is important for a Christian when thinking about the human desire for intimacy.
Psalm 139:1–3 (ESV)
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
God is intimately connected with his people. This is true in two senses: 1) Since God is God (all knowing, all seeing, everywhere all the time) he is intimately acquainted with every aspect of our lives; 2) The Holy Spirit, who existed with the other two persons of the trinity, before the world we know ever came into existence, indwells the Christian who has true faith. Christians have eternity in their hearts.
Romans 5:5 (ESV)
5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
I pray that this will help you experience triumph over your temptations to sin.