Week 11 A
TEMPTATION
Dearest woman of God,
Please check off the areas that we previously dealt with, in order for you to get an idea of how you’re doing.
If you have not made any progress in this area it might be a good idea to ask for some prayer by sending me an email or posting on our Members Forum. You might also look into some counseling, or support from a friend or pastor to speed up your healing.
- Do you think that you might have a problem with perfectionism?
- Has this also caused you to procrastinate?
- Did you start to make some changes in your life, such as setting realistic goals, to move away from this behavior?
- Do you tend to not live in the present?
- Have you made some time to stop and smell the roses last week?
- Are you afraid to fail?
- Did you see that you can teach yourself to be okay with failure, and have you taken some steps to do it?
- Did you accept my challenges to just relax and have some fun?
- Do you hear the voice of a drill sergeant or angry parent in your head, and have you taken some steps to silence that voice?
Overcoming Temptation
Why in the world am I talking about Temptation again?
Well at this point I thought it would be necessary to go a little deeper with this. I gave you a brief overview in Week 2 of what you can expect as far as being tempted by the enemy. It is very important to be aware of the fact that we are indeed in a Spiritual war, and that to engage in the ware might seem scary but it is totally worth it because we have the King of kings on our side and all the weapons of warfare at our disposal.
So let me warn you again: Knowledge is powerful, and you have gained a lot of it this past 10 weeks. You gained knowledge about your eating disorder, your past, yourself and your God. But I’m afraid if knowledge was all we needed, you could have read a book and just be done with it: There is more.
What can you expect?
You can really expect to be tempted/tested in every possible way. Basically: You’ve done the course, now comes the TEST
(Sounds like school, I know, but that’s pretty much school of life for you)
The most important things you will be tempted with:
- You will be tempted with busyness so you don’t get to spend time with God
- You will be tempted with a “deadness” or “boredom” towards the Bible
- You will be tempted to think that God doesn’t listen to you and doesn’t speak to you
You can also expect to be tempted with the following:
- You will be tempted with pride – denying the intensity of your problem
- You will be tempted to not believe that God can help you, and to try again to solve it yourself
- You will be tempted/tested to see if you really gave up your love for food
- You will be tempted to ignore your heart’s desires when things get tough, and not make time for you dreams daily
- You will be tempted to use your addictive food to cope with life (every day – maybe many times a day at first!)
- You will be tempted to turn again to dangerous methods to control your weight
- You will be tempted to skip exercise (every day!)
- You will be tempted to change yourself to fit the lie of the media and the world around you
- You will be tempted to blame your parents and stay stuck in unforgiveness
- You will be tempted to look for something other than God to fill your emptiness
- You will be tempted to not tell people the truth, because it’s easier
- You will be tempted to keep pleasing people and so avoid conflict
- You will be tempted to keep everything perfect including your body and relationships
- You will be tempted to procrastinate, so that you may never fulfill your dreams
Let’s have a closer look at Temptation
Who tempts us?
Obviously the first one that comes to mind is Satan, but have a look at this verse
James 1:13-15 (NIV)
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Do you see that we are tempted by our own desires?
Can it be that we actually desire to do all the things we have been doing up till now?
Let me answer this for you: YES, YES, YES!!
We have messed-up desires
Some are actually in direct contrast to each other, because some of these desires still belong to the flesh and others belong to the part of us that is under control of the Holy Spirit
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LET ME ASK YOU THIS: Do you have these desires?
Now, do you also have these desires?
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You are not alone in this. The Bible speaks about this:
Galatians 5:17 (NIV)
For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
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IMPORTANT: Our desires that are still not under God’s control is our main problem: If you want everything that you’ve learned in the past 10 weeks to stick and change you permanently – you have to let God change your heart’s desires. |
No human can set you free!
- You can follow everything I said to a tee, and still not be free
- You can be checked into a program where you are monitored day and night until you are seemingly healed from your eating disorder, but as soon as you step out of that clinic, you can go straight back to starving, binging, and purging
- You can have the best counselor that money can buy, be under the care of the best physician, and have your whole family support you and keep you accountable, and still never break free from your eating disorder
Why? Because you still want to do it!
- The desires of your flesh might still be crying loud above the desires of your spirit
- Listen, God knows. He knows your heart and He knows how you work.
The best part: He knows how to change your desires so that it would come in line with His desires and purposes for your life.
- We can trick others and tell them that we are free, while we know our hearts are still bound, but we can’t trick ourselves and we can’t trick God.
So what is Satan’s role in all of this
Well first off, your enemy knows about your weaknesses.
Satan is serious about the war that rages over our freedom (unlike many of us). He will use whatever worked in the past. Don’t worry though, he doesn’t have as much power as it initially seems.
Please have another look at this verse that I’ve mentioned in Week 2, and please write it on a note card to memorize if you haven’t done so yet.
1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
Do you see how temptation is measured by God?
I’m just putting it out there but is it possible that God allows Satan to tempt us so that we will become aware of a “hook” that is still in our lives?
The “way of escape” that this verse speaks of can sometimes be a practical escape, such as for you to remove yourself from the temptation. However in many instances the way of escape is about “allowing God to remove the evil desires from our hearts” so that we can resist the temptation.
How do I get rid of these desires?
First of all: You are not suppose to be without desires.
God created us to be motivated and directed by our desires.
Christians who pretend that they have no desires, end up in bigger trouble, because denying your desires won’t make them go away, they will just pop up when you least expect them.
We are suppose to trade in those desires for God’s desires. Some of His desires are already written on our hearts, and others will start to surface as we get to know Him more and understand His purpose for our lives.
The problem is that those desires are very faint and in the background. So how do we get those “good” desires to override the bad ones?
There are a few things you can do to change your desires:
- Make up your mind about it
- Delight yourself in God
- Live by the Spirit
- Starve those evil desires
- Prepare your mind for action: be self controlled
We will discuss these in Week 11 C (the last 5 days of this week)
BASICALLY: Surrender your spirit, soul and body to God.
Maybe you think that you’ve already done that. However, I’m asking you to take a second look at the reason behind your “surrender” in the past. Maybe you will discover a few hidden agendas there, as I did.
I am not saying this with even a speck of judgment. I desperately want to warn you that my life took so many detours because I really tried to get closer to God as part of a “get-thin-quick-plan”.
What about you? Are you maybe trying this God-thing as a last resort, and if it doesn’t make you thin and get you out of eating disorders then you are out of here?
Listen: Jesus wants to set you free, he came to set the captives free. But more importantly: He wants to have relationship with you!
Make no mistake: JESUS IS THE ANSWER. However, RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS is the answer to all of life’s problems – He is not a quick fix.
I do believe that God will set you free, but I also believe that He has a timetable for this to happen and that capturing your heart is part of the plan.
He knows when you’re just in it for what you can get and not for real relationship. If you have relationship with the Lover of your soul, your life will be so different and you will no longer have to turn to an idol. You may of course go through seasons when you briefly turn back to an idol, but I have found that even when I “fall” again, I get up so much faster these days, and I start seeking God again “with all my heart” as the Bible tells us to do. The reason for this: I miss the deep relationship with Jesus, and I want it back!
You can be free, satisfied, content, happy and all the things you always thought you had to get from food and other substances. However if God is to you just another “way-to-get-thin” then you will be disappointed
If you make up your mind that God is what you want for the rest of your life, regardless of how fast you get free, then it will change everything.
In fact, I can testify that God has used this weakness (food struggles) in my life to keep me close to Him. I have became aware of pride, control, people pleasing, perfectionism, and other sinful patterns in my life mainly because I was trying to get rid of my food addiction. All of these roads have lead me closer to God and taught me to surrender each of those broken places to Him. If I start overeating again tomorrow I will know where to look to find the answers: Renewing my relationship with God.
I’m pretty sure that if God just removed this food struggle from my life in an instance (as I’ve begged Him to do so many times) I would have remained in my broken and prideful ways and probably picked up another idol to fill the emptiness I felt inside. I’m so grateful to God for using this to draw me closer to Him. Learning to love Him has made all the difference in my relationships, my career, my marriage, my health, and really every nook and cranny of my life.
In order to get rid of evil desires in your heart you have to surrender your WHOLE LIFE to God
We live in the last days on the Kingdom calendar. There is no time to waste, so I need to tell you the truth: We will have to get real.
Things are going to heat up for us as Christians and having a relationship with God for the wrong reasons will not cut it. We might have other Christians fooled, but we can not fool God and we are not fooling the enemy.
2 Timothy 4:3(NIV)
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
Remember when we spoke about TRUTH: Truth is going to be the key factor in the last days.
Truth will set you free, and give you authority in the spiritual realm. If we know that we are not really authentic, we don’t have confidence, and we worry all the time.
Do you have confidence when dealing with Satan and his demons?
If you have confidence, then it is ONLY because you know who you are in Christ, you know that you are truthful in your relationships with others, and you know that you are truthful about the way you search after God.
Do you remember how God wants us to pursue our relationship with Him? Let me remind you:
Jeremiah 29:13 (AMP)
Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
So to get rid of our evil desires (as the Bible calls it) we have to reach for the will of God in our lives and let Him change our desires for good. (More on the practical implication of this in Week 11 C)
1 John 2:17 (NIV)
The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
Click here to go to the next section: “How this helped me”
PS: Please help me improve the quality of our members area by using the comment box below to let me know if you pick up on any technical errors, spelling errors, or typos. Testimonies are always welcome as well:) Thank you
the first section under the audio of “get rid of evil desires”, the word God is missing the letter d – “allowing Go to remove the evil…”
Thanks Sara, I just fixed it:)
this section really hit home for me today… i never thought of it as a hook in my heart… i think i keep trying to dodge to the left and right to avoid those loops satan throws at me… you eventually get tired and snagged…really want this giant hook removed… thank u heleen for all these helpful advice you give