Melanie’s dad expected his children to obey his orders. But one day, Melanie succumbed to temptation.
Melanie and her two sisters lived in a house beside a busy road. Their father instructed them repeatedly not to go into the road. “If you put one toe on the road, you will be punished!”
As children sometimes do, they didn’t always obey their father. One day, as they played outside, they inched closer to the road. Stephanie, Melanie’s older sister, dared Melanie to put a toe on the road. After looking repeatedly at the house to make sure her father wasn’t watching from the window, Melanie cautiously put one toe on the road.
When she did, the front door slammed and out stomped her angry father. Melanie was disciplined because she had not resisted the temptation of taking her sister’s dare to touch the road.
We often yield to the temptation to do what we know is against our heavenly Father’s will. In the Bible, God tells us how He wants us to live. When we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, His Holy Spirit comes to live within us.
God’s Spirit guides us and warns us when temptation sits on our shoulders, urging us to make wrong choices. The voice of temptation is often subtle and rationalizes that something isn’t bad, even though it conflicts with God’s commands.
Melanie accepted the dare from her older sister, even though she knew it was against her father’s rules. The result was discipline by her father.
We can choose to be like Melanie and ignore our Father’s guidelines, or we can resist the temptation to have our way and instead yield to what God knows is best for us.
Ask God to give you the power to resist all temptations.
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Norma C. Mezoe strives to be a Barnabas in her writing and in her living. Norma has been a published writer for thirty years and has written for magazines, devotionals, and S.S. literature. She is active in her small church as clerk, teacher, and bulletin maker. Norma may be contacted at normacm@tds.net.