Navigating Temptations

Hey, this is Tim Pratt Jr. and I want to welcome you to the Student of Life Podcast. Listen, we're going to get into so many transferable truths throughout the content of these episodes that I believe God is going to use to help you apply, because he's going to reveal what's already been there the entire time. Enjoy.

Hey yo, what's up? This Tim Pratt Jr. and I'm your host of the Student of Life Podcast, and we're going to jump into a really quick one today. It's not going to be as long as 40 minutes on the last episode. Uh, but this one right here is called Navigating Temptations. Navigating Temptations, where we're just going to basically look into the trials and triumphs of our spiritual journeys, like just straight up. Because I believe today, if not— I mean, it always has been, but especially today, I believe people are falling more to the snares and temptations of the devil, and we're not fortifying ourselves against them. This has been going on, but I believe we're one of the most connected and isolated generations ever, especially my group. Like, it's, you know, I'm not, I'm not gonna chase the rabbit holes today. So this one here, um, it was shaped by Brant Hanson and John Mark Comer for the most part, and of course the Bible. So I do have a verse that I'm gonna throw out and then I'm gonna point to a passage of scripture. I really want you to do your homework in these episodes. But especially this one because I believe it's timely. I believe that as we go into the holiday season, I just— just in general, like college students, high school, man, temptation is so high. And temptation in most cases, I believe, if not all, it's not necessarily evil itself because temptation— if temptation itself was evil, then that means Jesus would have sinned because he was tempted in the garden. So it's not evil in itself, it's just how do we handle it? What does it draw Do we stand for God and stay victorious in it, or do we yield and fall to the snares of it? And so this is the thing, this is the thing when it comes to temptation. When we are faced with it, like a temptation that can unravel everything we've ever built, everything that we're projected on, we rarely consider the full magnitude of our actions. Like, we don't think it through. Like, if I do this, this could cause this. I might have to live with this for the rest of my life. Because yes, God's grace and his mercy, and he forgives, but there are natural consequences that we have to live with for the rest of our life. And we may have to contend with them, or somebody else might have to contend with them. And, and God's grace is sufficient, but just because it's sufficient don't mean we have to fight those battles. We don't have to go through that. And so we have to basically think. We have to stop because we don't think. We don't think this will destroy everything. This, this will destroy everything that I thought it would look like. It will cost me dearly. Like, this, the cost for this is too great. Perhaps for the rest of my life. Like, do we really think about that? For the rest of my life, I have to deal with this. I'll say I'll live with the regret. I'll live with the regret over and over and over. I'll live with the devastation I've caused, whether it's within myself or another. But no, no, we don't do that. Instead, we narrow our focus. We just zone in on our problem. We zone in and say, uh, if you would have done this to me, I wouldn't have done this. Uh, I, I zone in and say, well, no, I deserve this in this moment. Uh, it feels right in this moment, but it's not right. Is it biblical? I'm not telling us to measure ourselves up against other people. I'm saying measure ourselves according to the word of God. We narrow our focus, and the reason why we like to narrow our focus, I believe, is because we avoid the broader consequences of our choices. And we truly, we misuse our freedom because if, if something is tempting us and it is leading us not to this lickback culture we live in, not this, um, the situation of like, well, I'm gonna just do me and I'm gonna ask God to be— no, is God pleased with me? Well, the other person did it to me, the whatever, uh, whatever it is, whether it's gossip, whether it's like, well, they— I heard they were talking about me, so now I'm gonna do, do them even worse. Well, they did this to my child and I'm gonna do this to theirs, or Even in schools, a lot of students— some students listen to this. Well, they was doing XYZ to me, so now I'm gonna blow it up and do it. But no, we narrow— we don't stop and ask the question, Lord, are you pleased with this situation? Will you get the glory out of this situation? How do you want me to handle this situation? Because see, if we do that, then we have to zone in and focus on how God is looking at it. We have to— we have to handle that temptation in another way. But no, like I said, we avoid that. We misuse our freedom. And this is what leads us hurting ourselves and those around us. Because I can— as I'm just saying this right now, I'm just thinking about it on my life, like, not for a guilt trip or anything, but I'm thinking back over and just in the context of this episode and just this moment to help someone else, is that I didn't have to do the things that I've done. I, I didn't have to hurt certain people. I didn't have to carry those things out because I should have seen myself through the lens of Christ versus myself through the lens of whatever my situation was. Like, straight up, Tony Evans said it best in his commentary, um, the devil— no one can make you sin. He can only set the stage. He can only provide the context to draw out what's already there. And a lot of times, like James in the book of James tells us, we are driven away by our own desires. Like, sin is not a pet. Like, we can't just keep it around like, oh, you know, it's— you know, you have to you have to purge that out of there through the power of God. You have to make some difficult decisions. You have to be in your word. Like, this is just real life. This is, this is real life. And the biggest thing is you have to be around community. You have to be around people that, that love you, that can challenge you to say, hey, something is off. Like, I might be wrong, but something is off. I just want to talk to you. And then in that, in that moment, you have to lean in and be like, don't lie. Like, yes, something is off. What with me. There were many times that I was called out, people, when I was like in temptation doing things, living a double life, um, just in the context of this. And people would expose me, like they would say, and I would get upset and get defensive and double down on it. And I'm digging deeper and deeper and deeper into it. And I'm so thankful that God— it's Brandon, one of my favorite preachers, say, Brandon Clark, somebody need to grab you by the lapel and shake you and say, wake up. Like, I'm so glad I had that moment because I don't know where I would be today if I wouldn't have came up out of that. If I would have just allowed that temptation to keep driving me deeper and deeper and deeper, man, when I would look up, it's no telling how many people I would have hurt. Like, it's, it's more than just you. This, like, decisions are connected to us. And yes, like I say, God's forgiveness, God's grace, and all that but some things we just don't have to do because you don't want to fight these battles, whether it be sexual, whether it be, um, uh, getting back at people through the context of not turning the other cheek in proper context. Like, basically, I'mma stoop to your level, or I'mma go lower. Like, it could be a lot of things. It could be gossip. It could be spreading a rumor on someone that spread a rumor on you, and you, you taking it up a notch. Like, these are the things that we have to say, okay, do I really want to do that? Do I want to consider everything? Like, I don't want to be drawn in by this temptation. And this is like essentially what happened. Like, the devil has the same framework. Satan has the same framework over and over and over. It's isolate and lie. Isolate and lie. That's, that's it. And we don't like to give him credit, but the Bible talks about him being cunning. He— the Bible, it points to chapter 3, him being very cunning. He is very deceitful. We are— again, we are no match for him. The way he knows how to manipulate things and make things appear one way that they're not— he's never showing you the full truth of it. It's always deception. So yeah, it might look like a little truth, but it's full-blown deception to get you to partake into something that was never— you was never meant to partake in. And this is what happened to Eve, which Adam— and but we look at over in the New Testament with Jesus, he faced the devil but didn't yield to him. It was the same thing Adam was supposed to do to protect Eve, but it didn't happen. The isolation and the lie, it sets the stage. But he tried to do the same thing, same framework with Jesus. And look, this is Jesus himself, fully God, fully man, but he used the word on the devil. He used the word of God on the devil. And so this is— if you don't catch nothing else from this, this is what I would say. This is why I believe that the Bible is calling, uh, is calling us higher. We must remember this. The Bible always calls us higher. Jesus in the New Testament, he raised the bar. He raised the bar. And in Corinthians, it talks about we take every, uh, we take every thought captive and make it obedient unto who? Christ. We make it obedient unto Christ, not our situation, not our temptation, not what we think, not our retaliation. We make it obedient unto Christ, Christ, Christ. Again, not our situation. If we make it obedient to our situation, then we feel justified. But we make it obedient to Christ, then now we have to repent. Now, 9 times— 10 times out of 10— Lord, forgive me— 10 times out of 10, we're not gonna do it. But long as you choose your situation over Christ, you are going to yield to the temptation. That's just the truth of the matter. So, so I want you to just think about the worst decisions that you've made in life. Again, whether it was manipulating somebody, you could have molested somebody, you could have raped somebody, you could have cheated on somebody, you could be in a relationship that you know you don't have no business being in, you could be gossiping about somebody, um, you could be stealing. You could literally be like, you could be stealing. You cannot— you, you could be treating your kids wrong. You could be treating your parents wrong. It could be a host of things. You could not be just, just anything that, that is not of God. I want you to think about the worst decisions that you have made, because I'm considering again right now. But in most instances, I can guarantee you, you were either alone or you were with somebody with ungodly character. I don't care how good of a moral person they are. I don't, I don't care about that because a person can be somewhat good morally, but if they do not truly know Christ and not submitted to Christ, I just believe that their character is flawed. You're either alone or you were influenced by someone that led you astray, no matter how strong that you think you are. And this is what I mean, the thoughts, the enemy. Here it goes. If you were alone, you didn't think, oh man, I should steal that. If someone wasn't around you, it was that thought in isolation that you never confronted, you never took captive. So I mean, I'm gonna take it anyway, I'm gonna do something that's ungodly. Or you around somebody that was doing it and they led you to it. It's, it's either one. It's sometimes it's both and, and then sometimes it might just be either one. But conversely, when we are surrounded by a community of believers who love Jesus, like straight up radically love Jesus, we rarely make those same mistakes, if ever. It's very rare that you're at your Bible study or you out with your pastor or another believer and you're doing life-on-life discipleship or someone that really cares with you, and you're just like, oh man, I want to look at porn today. Oh man, I want to steal this today. Very rarely, because there's really no room for it. So Satan, like, straight up, he understands these dynamics. He like— listen, man, this— he's no punk. Like, he's been around for a long time. He studied your family lineage, your lit— like, he knows a lot. He is, again, he is very influential in his— but his strategy is very consistent. It's to isolate and lie, isolate and lie, isolate and lie. And if he can separate us from a solid community of believers, man, the people in our life and distort our perception, he— he knows he has a foothold on us. Like, he knows he has us right in the crosshairs because it's all about like, I got him, I got him right where I want them, and they gonna isolate themselves, they gonna see this thing the way they want to see it. I don't really care if they come into repentance now. I just made them struggle with something even more because I— it's not about so much as forgiveness, man. It's about us being effective in the kingdom of God. And a lot of times we can't be effective is because because we know we keep yielding to temptations we shouldn't be yielding to. That's straight up one of my biggest things. And I'm so thankful for my wife. One of my big— I used to live in this lens because the things I had done is I was like, man, I can't go forward because I just believe a certain person had too much power, a certain group of people, like they were going to destroy me. But when I was free from that, when I was like, okay bro, everything on the table out. I want to be free, God. I want to be completely free. Because we got to get out of this habit of like, I just take it to Jesus. No, man, a lot of times things need to be exposed to other people that's going to cover you. It's not for everybody. Some stuff just don't need to be shared. Some stuff I ain't never sharing. I don't care how much testimony material, I don't care. I'm just not sharing it. I will try to figure out a way to give you the principles, but there's just certain things, man, people can't take because in our humane they— we will look at that individual so different. Some people just can't take everything, and that's just the truth of the matter. But the principle of it, I can talk to you in principle. I can, I can say, hey, I've went through some similar things, and I, I really know what you're feeling. I'm just not going to go into detail in my life. There's some things I'm going to share, it's free game, but there are certain things, man, it would have destroyed me if it wasn't for a group of people covering me. But this is the thing, even to this day there are some things that I still wrestle with because I'm like, man, what are they thinking? Because I— a long time ago I yielded to those temptations. Every now and then the enemy gets in my mind and it's like, man, and I have to cast it down, take that thought captive, and keep on moving. This is, this is what this is about. And this is what stops a lot of people from being effective because they're scared of temptations they have given into that they could have overcome, that they could have withstood. So this is the thing, you don't— I tell my kids all the time, as I help you navigate life, you steward life, I'm not going to be upset with you if you do something. There's, there's nothing that you can't do that will separate my love for you. This is how I talk to my kids. But however, I don't want you to live in isolation and dig yourself deeper into something and fight something that you don't have to have. Come talk to me first. Come talk to your mom first. My wife is notorious for saying— I think I can use that in this context— I can't fix what you don't tell me. In other words, if you don't identify it, I can't help. And that's how we gotta live our lives as a believer. You have to be around some people that are solid, that like, man, I can share this with you, you can sit with me in this, and I know that it's going to stay here. It's not that they are, um, condoning what you're doing. They're just saying, hey, I'ma cover you. I ain't leaking none of this out, but we gonna get this right. We gonna get this right so you can live a life that's pleasing to God. And so this is essentially like— I can go way more with this, but just in this context, like, we have to navigate these temptations by thinking about this. Do not allow him to separate you from a solid community and distort your perception. Don't. My therapist used to tell me all the time It's toe hold. I got your toe, so now you kind of tiptoeing and stuff. Now I got your foot. I got your foot. I'm holding your foot. Now it's a stronghold because we never dealt with when he just was holding our toe. So how do we combat this? How do we combat this? Again, it's by staying connected to a community that holds us accountable. We got accountability. Accountability. I know I'm screaming in the mic. I think I am. Accounta— accountability. Yes, we can pray to God, it's all vertical, but you've heard me say many times, vertical relationships are extremely important, it should be first, but God also wants us in horizontal relationships. Because when you have to stand before that person and say, hey, were you somewhere where you weren't supposed to be last night? See, it's different. Lord, please forgive me for being over there. God, please forgive me for being over there. It's vertical, there's no— I mean, it's accountability, but when you have to stand before somebody with flesh Hey, where were you last night? Uh, uh, don't lie. Now you got to be accountable. What were you doing last night? Like, right now with my wife being deployed, I am— listen, everything is fair game because I ain't messing up, bro. And it's not so much as about like, sin does not stay private. I just don't want to— about certain things just cannot come in. I, I joke all the time. I was like, bro, if I'm wrestling that much And my wife's like, where you at? Why you— I'm at my mom and dad, my mom and dad house, my mother and father-in-law house. Like, I, I'm coming down there. Like, that's just what it is. Like, there are so many parameters in my life. And I used to think, like, let me just be real because I feel led to share this. I used to think I was a weak Christian. I used to make this statement like, I love God, I love my wife, I love my family. And then, you know, and I would, I would say that because I heard my dad said And then it's like I just started to really eat because I didn't— I started reflecting on my life. But now this has become a true thing. I love God, I love my wife, and I love my family. I love all of God's people. But this is the thing, I used to think I was weak. Like, I'm like, man, dang, I really don't love her. If this is how the enemy tried to get in my mind and how a lot of times like bad theology is taught, well, you're not as strong as you need to be because you shouldn't be. God doesn't do— it's like so much. Oh my God, I don't have time to unpack that. But I'm like, no, you're not weak. That is the strongest thing you can do is to admit, hey, I need boundaries, I need help. We all don't have the same struggle, but at the end of the day, the same goal from the enemy is to get us false. So we might not have the same struggle, but you struggle with something. All of us do, and it's humanity. And sometimes just because they don't look alike, then it's easy to say, well, your struggle worse than mine. That's not the case. So you have to set up— you have to set up boundaries. You have to know yourself through the power of God. God, in my weakness you've made strong. So I'm like, Lord, I'm weak in this area. I've lived this type of life. Certain things I just can't look at. And, and like, even shows right now, as my wife is not around as much because she's deployed, there's some good-hearted shows that I'm like, bro, I would watch. Like, it ain't really nothing bad, seductive, no sex on there, but it's just like how the women or whatever, like, it just— what some of the things they do, I'm like, bro, I just don't want to watch too much of that, if not any of it. Like, because it's just my wife is not here. So that, like, we have to be okay with that and put those men— like, you're just not getting close. Like, that's the thing. And I, I ain't sounding to find this, man. I'm not saying I'm Ildris or, you know, all this type of stuff, but it's just what I'm— what I am saying is that I don't care about none of that because I don't want to fall. I don't want to fall, man. We have to— we have to quit acting like there's not an enemy out here that wants to set the stage and destroy the testimony. And I was telling one of my friends the other day at the coffee shop, so I know we quote those verses like, uh, you know, at least we not be a castaway and all of this type of things, but like in my life and how serious this is to me, I cannot fail. Like, I know God's grace and I know I'm going to the kingdom, I know I'm gonna be in heaven with the Lord, but it's so much— it's not just destroying my, uh, testimony. I'm not— Lord help me— not destroying my salvation, not losing my salvation, as Paul was writing about. But I don't want to disqualify my ministry that I have. I don't. I got kids looking at me. I, I have people looking at me. Like, I do not want to disqualify myself. I don't. And so this is why self-discipline and making my flesh obedient unto Christ— like, the flesh will never want to submit, but I have to make it obedient. And I can only do that, man, through The word of God, being connected to the right people, and boundaries, self-discipline, self-control. And so we have to be around a community of people that holds us accountable and encourage us to live the truth, like the truth of the matter. And we have to make every thought obedient to Christ. We have to resist the isolation and the lies that lead us to the downfall. We have to. We have to. We have no choice. So, man, get around that, get around that community, get around those people. This episode blessed you. Talk to somebody that you know you can talk to. Go to them. And even if you don't go to them about your struggles per se right now, just talk to them. Start getting help. Get in the word of God. Say, man, I just want to talk about things that around self-discipline, self-control, dealing with temptation. Just do it because God loves you, man. God loves you. And this is what I'm always going to say, and I'm gonna be done. Some battles you don't have to fight. You don't. So next— until next time, stay strong and stay connected. Love you.

Hey, what's up? I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to the Student Life Podcast today. If this content has impacted you in any kind of way, please take some time to share it on your social media feeds. And also, if you want to connect with me or just learn more about me, go over to www.timothyprattjr.org. Once again, thanks.