The Devil Made Me Do It

I am old enough to remember when it was fashionable for folks to do something that was either naughty or bad and then say "the devil made me do it". I heard it all the time, and since I was agnostic at the time, it made sense to me. While that saying is not in vogue anymore, we still want to blame our enemy, the devil for everything WE do wrong. The devil does not make us sin, he tempts us. He knows we are weak in the flesh, which is the domain he is strongest in. While we may be spiritually strong, we all still have flesh. That flesh is given to temptation. The enemy knows what our weaknesses are and will do everything in his power to tempt you into sinning. Christ himself was tempted by the devil. Does that mean Jesus sinned? No, he was sinless, but he was tempted in all ways, just like we are.

I have a simple, but accurate example of the difference between temptation and sin. Imagine you work in an office building that has conference rooms that are frequently in use. Snacks have been ordered and set up outside one of the conference rooms for the attendees. You see about 20 people in the room and enough snacks for about 30 or so. One of the snacks is fudge brownies, your favorite. You are tempted to take one, because you like them so much. The devil knows you like them, and he tries to rationalize you taking one by reminding you that there is plenty for the people in the meeting, so they will not miss one of those gooey, fudgey treats. The temptation is great, but you know that you are not an invited guest, so taking one would be stealing, a sin. So you resist the temptation and go back to your desk and drink your coffee. You did not sin, but you were tempted. Had you taken one of the brownies, then you would have sinned, but the devil did not make you do it, he only planted the seed.

Much like you can never make a person become a believer, you can plant a seed. That seed will either germinate and the person will believe or it will die and their soul will be lost. The devil plants seeds of sin (called temptation) in your mind. You will either let those seeds grow in to sin, or they seeds will die. God uses those dead seeds to strengthen us, to allow us to get better at resisting temptation.

A couple of days ago as I was checking my personal e-mail, I noticed one from a couple we had not heard from in quite some time. They had just adopted their second child from Easter Europe, a charming pre-teen who looks remarkably like her adopting mother. The e-mail was sent to a large group of people, indicating to me they had friends all over the world they wanted to share their joy with. I responded to her, telling her how happy we were for their family and hoped they would share more info with us as time permitted.

Yesterday morning I noticed that one of the recipients on the distro list had made the mistake of replying to everyone on that large list, instead of replying to the sender. Since I am an 'Net geek, I knew that "reply to all" was a bad thing, since it creates a ton of extra 'Net traffic and opens the door to spam. I replied to the sender of that e-mail with a polite request not to include me in any future e-mails. It went something along the lines of, "While I share in your thoughts that $senders_child is a gift from God (she is adorable), it would be best to reply to the sender only instead of sending your thoughts to the entire Distro List. Peace in Christ, $El_Gee"

I never gave the e-mail any more thought after I sent it until last night, when I got home from work and noticed the person who replied to all had responded to my e-mail. I was expecting a "Oh, sorry about that, my mistake" e-mail, but instead, I received a scathing e-mail telling me "not to judge them, go look in a mirror and look at myself, who did I think I was correcting them, and did I consider that it was a mistake...". WOW, that was harsh. It was a whole paragraph from someone I did not know rebuking me for gently reminding them not to reply to all in an e-mail. I had thought I was doing them a favor by informing them of their oversight, but instead, I am read the riot act. I wish I had saved the e-mail, but something told me to get rid of it. Since the enemy knows our weaknesses, he tempted me with this e-mail. He wanted me to give in to my hurt by replying (in a less than Christian way) to this person and rebuking them, but I didn't. I won't say that it was easy. I am normally pretty thin skinned. But I felt that this person was wrong for their actions towards me. I was tempted to respond, but I didn't. God, by telling me to delete the e-mail, gave me a way out, so I would not be tempted to sin against my brother/sister, whom I do not know personally. Actually this situation follows scripture. I cannot remember the exact verse, but scripture tells us that we are led to temptation, but God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can endure, and when we are tempted, he will provide a way out so we can stand beneath it. He did just that for me.

Thank you, Jesus. While I still feel the sting of that persons words, I am free from the temptation to retaliate.