Temptations will come to you this week, and Jesus says, “Watch and pray, so that what will come to you will not enter into you and trap you.”
Everybody is tempted. As long as you’re in the body, temptation can reach you. The impulse to sin has a landing place in your life.
Jesus doesn’t say, “Watch and pray, so you won’t be tempted.” There is no way you can get into a place in the Christian life where you are no longer tempted. He says, “Watch and pray, so that you will not fall into temptation.” Literally it says, “so that you will not enter into temptation.”
John Owen is helpful here. Entering into temptation, Owen says, has two distinctive features:
First, “Satan becomes more earnest than usual.”
There are times when he intensifies his assaults against you. Not every day in the Christian life is the same. There seem to be days and seasons of life when all hell breaks loose. Paul refers to this, “put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes…” (Ephesians 6:13).