I read a recent press report of a queue that formed at a supermarket petrol station where a self-serve petrol pump was selling at just a few pence a litre. It was obviously a mistake but the news soon got around and by the time the error had been rectified over fifty motorists had already filled their tanks. Due to the traffic chaos outside the store with some even coming along with portable tanks and containers the police were soon on the scene. It was all down to a pricing error with a decimal point in the wrong place. For a couple of hours some may have thought they had been transported back to the days when petrol was genuinely at that price. Now that was a long time ago!
If we’re entirely honest I’m sure that all of us would confess to have given in to temptation at one time or another in our lives. Oscar Wilde said that the one thing he did when confronted with temptations was to give in to it! That may not be the ideal, but it’s an honest response. When temptation to do what we know is wrong creeps up on us we need the resolve not to give in and always to try and to do what is right. This season of Lent reminds us that Jesus was tempted for forty days and nights in the wilderness. Despite the intense heat of the day and the biting cold of the night he did not give in to the taunts and the temptations which were laid on him. How much easier it would have been to avoid the suffering and death that was to come.
Jesus’ example can be for us a source of encouragement and inner peace when we are confronted with temptation. ‘Easier said than done’ you may say and you’d be right. However, the assurance we have then we do fail,as often we dowe can be sure of God’s forgiveness when we truly repent. This Lenten time we are invited to walk with Jesus and learn his ways and to be sure that as we try to resist the temptations that come our way he will help us overcome. Jesus said ‘I will be with you, even to the end of the age’ and that’s a promise on which we can totally rely!
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