The Six T's in Living
Life Part 3
Navigating Life from
Trials to Triumph and
Testimony
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I encourage you to read Part 1 and 2 before Part 3
Click Here for Part 1, Click Here for Part 2
Return to Main Menu
I encourage you to read Part 1 and 2 before Part 3
Click Here for Part 1, Click Here for Part 2
Knowing if you are in
a test or a temptation.
Finding Joy in our
Trials
Was Jesus really
tempted?
Abraham Tested Genesis 22:1-3
1Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied.2Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."3Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.
I did not give high
school a good effort. Easily earning A's
and B's in
math and science helped my 83 overall average for the four years. You can imagine my grades in English,
history, and other humanity courses where I should have studied.
When I started college
I came to a change of attitude about study so I could stay. By the third semester I was making all A's
and B's because I studied!- Hard! The library was my best study buddy from 7:00
am to 10:00 pm. The Trial of college,
the hard difficult
work, the impossible odds of staying in college, and the achievement of
excellent grades taught me the Joy of the Trial in passing Tests. As I struggled through college, even in my
last year, I would get discouraged during the semester, but remind myself of
the results of hard work and the joy it would bring! In that, I even found joy learning to side step professors’ discouragement
they would sometimes put on us. In the
end, I more than passed the Tests of the semester.
Caring About Your
Trials
In our trials, we
truly should care to know the difference between a test and a temptation and be
especially aware that any trial begins with a test and can easily slide into a
temptation. It is about preparation and
attitude prior to the trial. Based on an
individual, a trial may be a test for one person and a temptation for the
other. As you will see below, a test is a very positive trial. But when we are in a trial, a test can become a temptation easily leading to sin, and in sin, life can become deadly.
I was raised to tell
the truth and be honest in all that I do.
The Joy I found in the Trials and Testing of college is that I can truthfully say
that I never fell into the temptation of cheating. I was tested but I can never remember
being Tempted to cheat and succumb to temptation for better grades. Now, with that said, imagine trying to say the
last two sentences with just one word for 'test', 'tempted', and 'temptation'. Such is the way in the ancient Biblical
manuscripts. One word is used for the
verbs and associated nouns of 'to test' and 'to tempt'.
Understanding Biblical
‘testing’ / ‘temptation’,
New insights to Jesus
being tested or tempted
In the Bible, from
Genesis 22 when Abraham was tested about using his son Isaac as a sacrifice, to Jesus being
tempted in the wilderness, and in James, Chapter 1, writing about being tested,
the same basic Greek and Hebrew equivalent verb is used. That word is 'peirasmos', pronounced
'pi-rad'-zo'. The challenge in
understanding 'Testing' and 'Temptation' in the ancient Greek, is that
peirasmos can be used to convey tempting and to mean testing. Based on how the Greek verb is used and in
the context of the writing determines what the verb's meaning is in that
context.
The translation of
peirasmos resulting in "tempt/tempted/temptation" of the Greek word is
done in the following manner. If the
trial is where a person is being (1)- maliciously or craftily enticed/seduced
to sin, or (2)- to be made to fall or become hurt, or (3)- to be made weaker
physically or mentally, or (4) to be pulled from God's purpose, then in these
cases, the verb tempt
and the noun temptation are
used in the translation.
Contrarily, a person is in a trial in a
positive manner if the person's trial is (1)- judgment for fitness for a specific job, or (2)-
tried to be strengthen, or to be made stronger (physically, mentally, or spiritually, or (4) being evaluated or refined for pureness, wisdom,
and/or correctness, or (5) an
attempt or endeavor to achieve a worthy goal, then, the 'peirasmos' is
translated as testing.
How ‘peirasmos’
applies to us,
One person’s test is
another person’s temptation
A simple example of
how a trial can be a test or a temptation depending on the individual. A teacher announces an
evaluation of knowledge commonly known as a test. For all of us in school, tests were/are a
trial! One student studies and comes
prepared, but another student of similar intelligence does not. The prepared student comes to the test with a
more positive attitude about what the outcome will be. With
being prepared and careful test taking, the student completes the test with no
need to look around for answers. But,
the unprepared student begins the test becoming immediately challenged and
starts looking elsewhere for answers. In
the "looking" the trial of being tested becomes a temptation to
cheat. Upon finding an answer from
another person’s paper, the temptation continues with more cheating.
Few evaluations in
school result in death, but if in temptation a person continues to cheat, the
result can be getting caught. In being
caught enough, expulsion from school can occur.
It is not death, but life, if the situation is desiring money, one has
many choices. Some of those choices are
temptations and in executing those temptations the result can be death, such as
robbing a store and being shot by the owner of the store.
So, a test can be a
positive trial with just a test or it can result in temptation, temptation
leading to death.
Eliminating Temptation
We should want to
eliminate temptation from our lives. It
begins by depending on God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We have to prepare ourselves for trials so
that the trial is only a positive test resulting in some level of success.
When we depend on God,
we build up a trust in God in moving from one trial to the next, and one level
of trial to a higher level of trial as we prove ourselves of worth . As long as we are depending on Trusting God
then we have a Firewall to Temptation.
In Part 4, the testing
of Abraham will be discussed, and the temptation of Jesus
will be compared to Abraham in Part 5. During these
discussions we must keep in mind the temptations of Jesus and wonder to what extent, "Was
Jesus really tempted?"
The answer just might cause you to keep your life's focus on a greater Trust in God! After all, He was
the Perfect Leader and He did set the Perfect Example for us to follow.
Something to Think About
Can we fall into
temptation without succumbing to temptation, meaning can we in the trial slip
over to being tempted and return to just being tested? How can we plan and seek to avoid
temptation? These are great questions to answer before
serious trials come to our lives.
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© Lonnie Coggins
ldcoggins@gmail.com
If you desire to use any of these messages in a For-Profit manner you must contact me (email) for permission. Typically, I will most likely give permission.
Thanks Be To God
© lonnie coggins
==============================
Sharing these messages
You are welcome to share these messages. You can send the links to your friends, copy and insert the link on FB or Christian.com or you can print the message and share it with your friends.
You can print the message including this sharing message only for your friends and for non-profit. You will have to copy and paste the message to a word processing document. After you copy and paste add the following at the end of the message:
© Lonnie Coggins
ldcoggins@gmail.com
If you desire to use any of these messages in a For-Profit manner you must contact me (email) for permission. Typically, I will most likely give permission.
lonnie
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