When we are tempted, we are battling an envious enemy who wants to separate us from God by causing us to doubt his plan and providence. Consenting to temptation leads to sin and death.
Temptation is not a sin in itself, but it is an attraction, either from outside or within oneself, to act contrary to what is right and to do what goes against the Commandments of God.
Man is unable to avoid sin completely, but can resist sin in certain situations by utilizing the means provided by God and encouraged by the Church.
God does not tempt man but does allow challenges and trials because, when temptation is resisted by using faith in God and by relying on his grace, it leads to spiritual growth.
Even Jesus himself was tempted during his life on Earth to make clear the contempt between the devil and the Son of God. Jesus resisted Satan’s temptation by praying to God the Father and by relying on Sacred Scripture.
All of us face difficult choices:
The original temptation continues to affect us today:
No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.
1 Corinthians 10: 13
Jesus resisted temptation with Sacred Scripture:
Beating Satan at his game:
Now it is true that our Master’s warning in this respect referred primarily to the need to be on the watch for the end of the world, which will have to come sooner or later. But precisely because this vigilance must always be present and operative in the mind of the faithful servant, it follows that everything that he sets his hand to, his whole way of life as a Christian in the world, should conform to this rule. Our Lord’s exhortation to vigilance is equally applicable to things which may be of more immediate concern to us, the dangers and temptations which threaten to corrupt men’s moral lives and turn men away from the right path of truth. Thus it is easy to discover in the Gospel a continuous appeal to right thought and action.
Pope Paul VI, Ecclesiam Suam, 6 August 1964
The grace to resist temptation is always available:
Resisting temptation with the true, the good, and the beautiful:
The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man, and temptation, which leads to sin and death. We must also discern between being tempted and consenting to temptation. Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, whose object appears to be good, a “delight to the eyes” and desirable, when in reality its fruit is death. God does not want to impose the good, but wants free beings…. There is a certain usefulness to temptation. No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even we ourselves. But temptation reveals it in order to teach us to know ourselves, and in this way we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2847
The diabolical logic of temptation:
When does temptation become a sin?:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Discovering the power of the sacraments:
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