James 1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

The Lord’s prayer says lead us not into temptation and in truth God does not temp us nor does He intend for us to suffer temptation. In these last days the world surrounds us with temptation. Satan floods us with temptation in hopes of carrying us away.

The idea of being carried away is the exact opposite of enduring temptation. The Greek word of endureth here in James 1:12 is hypomenō which literally means remain. The idea is that temptation wants to take you someplace else. On the internet we call these hyperlinks.

Words and photos can be hyperlinks. Those words and photos are temptations, they do not always bear resemblance to the place they take you. You can find yourself on the wrong webpage because you clicked on that link by mistake. Granted some trusted webpages will not lead you astray.

Here on my blog I do not advertise. I pay for this space out of my own pocket. Larger, even good webpages, that provide a large range of service and support find it costly. To offset those costs, they will sell advertising space. More and more webpages sell space to offset costs. In that they cannot 100% guarantee that those links will keep you away from ads which begin by whetting your appetite.

To know you are in Christ and to remain in Christ is the only safe place, that solid rock, unshakeable, immoveable, constant and consistent, in whom there is no temptation.

If you do not know this temptation of which I speak, then praise God you do not participate on social media. That is no judgment for those of us who do, it is a warning about careless clicking.

Fear thou not; for I am with thee

Do you have the address for this quote without doing a bible search? Book, chapter and verse?

I would be surprised if 1 in 100 could point to the exact address. Would it surprise you that it is used only once in all of scripture? It is used only once as quoted in all of scripture using the KJV.

How about the speaker? Who said it? Is your instinct to say Jesus? It wasn’t. If your instinct was to say Jesus, you are not alone.

Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Jesus said “It is I, be not afraid.”

So what is the big deal? What does it matter? Isn’t Jesus saying the same thing in a different way? Taken out of context it matters because that is exactly how Satan deceives. Satan plays on our fallibility. He did it to Eve in an obvious manner to those who have read and know the Word. Now that we are knowledgeable of who Jesus Christ is, and the Holy Spirit is given, Satan has to be just a little more subtle. And subtle he is, crafty with words, for he too knows the scriptures.

Do I expect you to know every line of scripture chapter and verse? No, I do not and few do. The issue is not that we can pull up the address of any particular verse, it is that our trust is in Him and not ourselves. When it comes to important issues, we need backup, something more reliable than our human memory.

Our electronic bibles are great for getting us to the correct address via a simple search. Once there, we still need to appropriate the Word in context and apply it correctly to combat Satan’s attack.

Ephesians 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

That weapon is meant to combat Satan and you must be trained up in its use.