→ Arrows of the Almighty ← [10.1.09]

No One Is Immune From Temptation † ?

As we make time in our daily routines to spend with the Lord and his word, those Bible characters take on a life of instruction in our spirits and consciousness.  Wayne Cordeiro in his book “The Divine Mentor” tells this story of a moment of temptation.

“Several years ago, when I was feeling tired and weary, temptation availed itself with a perfect alibi.  I’d completed an engagement early and had a free night in a hotel near the airport.  I was unaware that this particular area was well known for prostitution.

  I asked the maitre d’ for a table for one.  I was no sooner seated than a strikingly beautiful woman sat down across from me.

  ‘Are you satisfied with this hotel?’ she asked.  I assumed she was a hotel representative surveying the customers.

  ‘Why, absolutely,’ I replied. ‘This is a beautiful hotel.’

  ‘And the rooms, are they to your satisfaction?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said naively. ‘The beds are so comfy!’

  ‘I am here to offer you elite services,’ she continued, ‘reserved only for gentlemen.’

  I must be pretty dim, because I still didn’t catch on.  ‘Services?’  I asked.

  ‘Yes, escort services that will make your stay a memorable one.’

  It finally clicked, and my light went from dim to bright.  She was working, all right, but not as a surveyor.

  Immediately an inner voice interrupted.  ‘No one would know,’ cajoled the passing ruse.  ‘You’re in a strange hotel, in a strange part of the country … and you deserve a break today!’

  It may have been an illusion, but I thought I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Joseph running from Potiphar’s wife and as he passed me, he yelled, ‘You’d better follow me, Cordeiro—and follow me now!’

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said.  ‘I forgot something in my room.’  And when I got there I locked the door!”

Isn’t that what Jesus was telling his disciples in the garden when He instructed them to pray lest they fall into temptation.  If they had stayed awake and prayed with Jesus perhaps the events that followed would not have taken them by surprise and might even have spared them from reacting as they did.  To be prayed up and unyielding to temptation we must get into those times of meditation and solitary times with the Lord and His Word.  If you do not have such a habit, start it now!