temptation

Power was my weakness and my temptation.

The devil can get you through your flesh. He knows the button to press on your flesh and have a way into your mind. The flesh becomes a transport medium for evil things if not killed for God. If Christ makes a home in your mind, satan can't get there.

Mind is greedy. When you sense the benefits with people who previously thought rubbish about you, the mind forgoes those thoughts and inclines toward those people only to gain optimal benefits.

Temptation is stronger in the minds of people who are in doubt. Prayer makes it weaker.

If we would answer the question of the existence of the Evil then we would not be sinners, we could make something else responsible.

I have known the spirit of my soul through the trials and temptations.

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.

If you give in to temptation, you may have a moment of enjoyment, but then you'll have a lifetime of regrets.

Money! Money's the curse of man, none greater.That's what wrecks cities, banishes men from homes,Tempts and deludes the most well-meaning soul,Pointing out the way to infamy and shame." - Creon

Hard to say what's right when all I wanna do is wrong.

It is better to avoid the temptation than get entangled in the sin.

But a good wife__ good unworldly woman__ay really help a man, and keep him more independent.

I wonder if pain comes from surrendering or resisting?

The temptation is too strong for me. Oh, Lord! where is Thy peace that I believed in, in my childhood? _ that I hear people speaking of now, as if it hushed up the troubles of life, and had not to be sought for _ sought for, as with tears of blood! [-Jemima, chapter 26, pg. 275]

There are two influences ever present in the world. One is constructive and elevating and comes from our Heavenly Father; the other is destructive and debasing and comes from Lucifer. We have our agency and make our own choice in life subject to these unseen powers. There is a division line well defined that separates the Lord's territory from Lucifer's. If we live on the Lord's side of the line Lucifer cannot come there to influence us, but if we cross the line into his territory we are in his power. By keeping the commandments of the Lord we are safe on His side of the line, but if we disobey His teachings we voluntarily cross into the zone of temptation and invite the destruction that is ever present there. Knowing this, how anxious we should always be to live on the Lord's side of the line.

God judges men from the inside out; men judge men from the outside in. Perhaps to God, an extreme mental patient is doing quite well in going a month without murder, for he fought his chemical imbalance and succeeded; oppositely, perhaps the healthy, able and stable man who has never murdered in his life yet went a lifetime consciously, willingly never loving anyone but himself may then be subject to harsher judgment than the extreme mental patient. It might be so that God will stand for the weak and question the strong.

Too often there is this sinister greed that pulls at my coattails, subtly whispering in the ear of my soul that it is within my rights to tuck away a few dark trinkets to toy with when the tedium of righteous living gets a bit boring. But God would suggest that I empty my pockets.

You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere. The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it--all this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition.