Temptation

A couple of nights ago I was tempted in a dream.  The dream was hyper-real, I thought I was really there and not dreaming.  I was tempted to a great sin but at the end I was able to lean on God and just resist.  I woke up from that dream with a lot of shame for being so tempted.  I felt like I had already committed the sin and I worried what it meant if I hadn't resisted.

Now, from the reading this Sunday, I see that being tempted isn't a sin, giving in to sin is.  I often have dreams like this, it's like God is teaching me a lesson.  In this case I was tempted but I turned to Him and was able to resist the sin that was attracting me.

As we move toward following Christ we will be tempted.  The devil will tempted us and if we resist he will tell us just being tempted is as good as sinning so we might as well give in.  Now I am for warned.  I know I can resist with Gods help.  I think the nature of sin isn't so much the sin itself but that it distracts us from God and our purpose in life.  It draws us into ourselves and takes our eye of loving God and His creation.  Sometimes the devil does this through negative emotions, hate, anger, jealousy, sometimes through pleasure.  The devil tries to trap us in ourselves, making us ineffective for building up the kingdom.

We building up the Kingdom of God through community.  Community insulates us from the working of the devil.  Eve is tempted by herself, and Jesus goes out to the desert by himself to draw the devil to temp him.  Community can be a source of sin for us too if we are not in the right frame of mind.  If we not in a loving frame of mind all the people in the world around us can not draw us into community, we have separated ourselves from that community.  The funny thing is that when we worry about what other people are doing in our community and not what we are doing is when we separate ourselves from that community.    When we worry only about our own behavior is when we can be open to living in community with others.