[God] will not let you be tempted
beyond what you can bear.
—1 Corinthians 10:13
A person “is tempted,” wrote James, “when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown gives birth to death” (Jas 1:14–15).
D.C. Allison called these words “the fool’s biography.”
James pictured evil desire as conceiving and giving birth to a child, Sin. That child, if it becomes full-grown, results in spiritual death.
James was warning against an amenable response to a temptation—welcoming rather than resisting it.
Christians sometimes feel that they are spiritually weak because they continue to experience temptation. Not so. Temptation never stops taunting us. Christian maturity is not shown by the infrequency of temptation but by the infrequency of succumbing to it.
Temptation will come.
Decide now what you will do then.