Imagery of Temptation

"but each person is tempted 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." - James 1:14-15

Her name is “Temptation”,
Her lips are laced with poison of false intimacy. Men know Truth, yet they prostitute their lips to hers. Her venom pulses through the host’s veins,
infecting… polluting… impeding genuine love.
Constant ecstasy is a harlot’s dream. For when a pleasure is converted to habit it loses its flavor, becoming unpleasant and bitter. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula for slavery. Men relinquish their very souls and receive nothing in return. She offers real pleasure, but can only twist or contort what God has created for corrupt intentions. All she can do is seduce men in weakness to take fleeting pleasures:
in times of impatience… in ways that are forbidden… in degrees that are empty.
Men often find themselves ravished before they recognize their new pleasure as a temptation. The youthful innocence of being in love steadily, yet oh so unsuspectingly, begins to give birth to selfish motives, breeding a monster we title lust. They pretend as if their love is pure while they murder their brothers with piercing comments of resentment and anger. They fictitiously imagine they are justified in taking revenge because of an injustice done to them. The oppressed become the oppressor.
Her soft voice bids them to drink from a cup safely coiled within her beautiful hands. “You are so tired… so desponded… you are thirsty… Come and taste. Release your inhibitions. Relieve your despair and quench your thirst.” While the exterior is beautiful, her interior is ugly. Her gentile hands are instead like daggers around a dying man’s throat. Yet, knowing full well her cup is infused with poison, men return time and time again, convincing themselves while on broken knees that, “Perhaps…perhaps this time will be different from all the rest? Perhaps this one will truly satisfy?” They are reduced to swine scarfing down slop from a trough with an upheaving sensation of self-loathing, despair and emptiness. Constant indulgence numbs the heart and renders the conscience indifferent to oppression, the heart incapable of love. They rationalize their innocence because they are not gluttons to the excess, however in reality they are addicts, masquerading under the shroud of moderation. When all of the intoxicating beauty is stripped away, her true motives are laid bare and naked, to give birth to sin and consummate in death.

This is our prayer,
We admit our helplessness.
We must confess we are sinners, often playing the tempter’s part.
We are faithless, living out a stubborn will.
We are disloyal, prostituting ourselves to false gods.
We cry out for help! For Redemption!
Father, redeem us not from the world, but from ourselves!
We are the problem and You are the solution.
Our hearts are the fountain for sinful desire.
We reflect and ponder on Your character:
Faithful…
Just…
Merciful…
Holy…
Compassionate…
Long suffering…
Loving…
Forgiving…
You have overcome temptation of every kind.
You have crushed the serpent’s head.
Teach us to do the same. May Your victory be our victory.
Amen.