Temptation of Christ by Vasily Surikov
Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is always good to know our weaknesses and the tactics of the devil, who desires our eternal damnation. There is much pressure Christians face today to conform themselves to the ideas and values of this world, of which many are completely contradictory to God's Laws, whereas we are instructed by the Holy Spirit to...
...not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2)
If we are not strong in Christ and rooted in our Christian Faith, we will fall by the wayside into the raging current of lawlessness and acquiesce to many sins of our time. This is a current so strong that it has swept away many Christians onto the path of perdition. It is urgent to bring our brothers and sisters back because the eternal salvation of many is on the line. We ourselves need to also be vigilant, knowing that we need to ...
...keep sober and alert, because your enemy the devil is on the prowl like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
Part of being a disciple is the realization that we will need to suffer for the truth, just like Christ did who is the Truth. Yet these sufferings are so small and almost nothing in comparison with the eternal glory that awaits us.
You will have to suffer only for a little while: the God of all grace who called you to eternal glory in Christ will restore you, he will confirm, strengthen and support you. (1 Peter 5:10)
With that being said, I think it is important to know four common temptations or weaknesses that face us as Christians that could (should we choose to go along with them) lead us to compromise our Faith and betray Christ.
Four common temptations that lead Christians to compromise their Faith
1. Willful self-deception.
In an attempt to reconcile one's faith with the anti-Gospel values proposed by our culture, many will willfully deceive themselves into believing that these things are o.k. to support and believe and that one can still maintain their Christian faith and identity. Because it is objectively impossible to reconcile the truth of Christ with the lies of this world, one will continue to justify their position over and over again in their minds and essentially talk themselves into genuinely believing that their salvation is not at risk and their support and belief in anti-Gospel values is acceptable to God. They
...exchange the truth of God for a lie. (Romans 1:25)
The even scarier part about this is that a Christian who has willfully deceived himself about his position on life, sexuality, immorality and the like, is convinced that the Lord is o.k. with this and does not desire him to "go and sin no more." A common excuse one might us is, "God is merciful and loves us all." Absolutely and amen to that! But it is precisely because the Lord loves each one of us that His love makes demands and has expectations that help "guarantee" our fidelity to Him. Christ told us,
If you love me, keep My Commandments. (John 14:15)
Our Lord repeats this a few times in almost the same breath. Love makes demands because authentic love desires the greatest and highest good for the other, namely, heaven and our eternal salvation.
These Commandments, as revealed in Scripture and in the Sacred Tradition of our Church, keep us in God's Will, and could be considered a kind of "safety net" for our salvation. It is one thing to believe in Christ, but, even the devil does that. It is obeying and doing the will of God that will save us, by the merits of Jesus Christ...
Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But only the one who the does the will of My Father in Heaven. (Matthew 7:21, my emphasis added]
Willful deception is very dangerous to one's salvation. It is also very sad in that it divides the Body of Christ, when Christ desires that we all be one - one Faith, one Lord, one baptism.
To willingly subscribe to the agendas and values of this culture of death while still professing the Christian faith is a false and deceptive dichotomy. It is also very dangerous because it leads one to heresy and apostasy, which are the breaking of the First Commandment...
Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith. [Catechism of the Catholic Church #2089]
Let us correct and draw one another back to the truth, out of love and with a filial love, reverence, and affection. Let us consider, sincerely and honestly, which Christian truths we do not want to believe. Let us see where we stand with regards to same-sex "marriage" and the LGBT movement's ideologies which foster a deep opposition and hatred towards God's designs. Let us see where we stand with abortion, with sexual impurity, pornography, and contraception, among many others.
You see, the issue here with willful deceit is that the Christian does not want to confront the voice of the Holy Spirit and so, by constantly repudiating His voice and "nudgings," the conscience becomes dull and blinded to the point where one does not feel the sense of guilt they should - a guilt that is healthy and good because it is a sign of a formed and living conscience and because it leads us to repent and immerse ourselves in God's mercy. This is very dangerous because now one has become "numb" and "dead" in their ability to distinguish with God's Wisdom what is good and what is evil. Sadly, the Christian does not want to be convicted, when conviction is actually a sign the Holy Spirit is working in one's life...
"And when He comes [the Holy Spirit], He will convict the world of its sin and of God's righteousness..." [John 16:8]
It would be false to say that the Holy Spirit does not cause feelings of guilt. In St. Ignatius' first rule for discernment of spirits (rules which help us discern what things are coming to us from God and what things are coming from the evil one), it is the good spirit which inflicts and "pokes" at the conscience of a soul that is in mortal sin and is going from mortal sin to mortal sin. We must always remember that while the Holy Spirit convicts, He does so to draw us out of a very dangerous place, that of mortal sin and the path to hell. With conviction though, comes consolation and comfort. When we choose to turn our life around or change our hearts with regards to various issues that confront us today, the Lord walks with us and He stands by us, never abandoning us.
Willful deception in order to justify one's stance on a particular moral issue is very dangerous and causes us to betray our Lord in our hearts, despite our outward conformity to our Christian practices. Let us always seek and abide in the truth about various matters, for...
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. [1 Corinthians 13:6]
2. Willful neglect.
Tied in with willful self-deception is willful neglect. Or, as the Catechism calls it, incredulity.
Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. [Catechism of the Catholic Church #2089]
Some may think that if they just ignore exploring the issues from the Christian understanding, then they can "claim ignorance." Do you know what St. Paul says ignorance is? He calls it alienation from the very life of God!
So I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous and have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind of impurity to excess. That is not how you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard of him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus, that you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth. [Ephesians 4:17-24]
Our darkened understanding leads not to bliss, as the cliche "ignorance is bliss" asserts, but toward alienation from God. We push ourselves away from God by refusing to know. This is just as serious of a sin as knowing and rejecting. "If I just stay away from knowing and understanding why same-sex marriage and LGBT acts are wrong, I'm really not accountable."
But we are, even moreso now. We are accountable before God, even if we tell ourselves we are not. This is another common temptation Christians faith in order to compromise their Faith and betray Christ.
3. Making idols of our human relationships and human opinion.
Idolatry breaks the First Commandment.
With many of the sins of our times from cohabitation, sexual immorality, abortion, homosexual acts, and all that is tied in with the LGBT agenda, we may look around and find that many people we know are involved in them and living a lifestyle in sin. What typically leads many Christians to change their positions on these issues from a Christian one to the opposite side is human attachments that become idols.
By that, I mean that one may know personally someone who is a good person yet lives in a
way that is opposed to the Gospel of Christ. Because of the goodness they see in this person and perhaps even because of their relationship with them, it is hard to understand how living in a sinful way can jeopardize their salvation; we just don't want to admit that the salvation of the very person we love is at stake and we would rather not undergo the "cost" of being Christ's disciple by putting a relationship on the line and disturbing it. We would rather stay quiet and not warn against their choices of sin in a filial way. Christ told us that we have to choose Him and be faithful to Him, even above our blood relations including mother, father, son, daughter...
If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. [Luke 14:26-27]
Those are strong words, but that is what our Lord means: We must choose fidelity to Him over anyone else - even ourselves. We must be willing to undergo the cost, even if it means certain relationships may change or be lost. These are hard words but the Lord walks with us and will comfort and console us as we carry those crosses.
But, by refusing to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ to heaven by denying the fact that what they are doing is very harmful for their soul because we are afraid or would rather not "rock the boat," we make idols of them above God by either supporting the sin (which the person may now refuse to acknowledge as sin, whereas they once did before) or by deceiving themselves into thinking that while they can support and encourage their friend's/family's/co-worker's choices, that they themselves are not guilty of cooperating in that sin (which they then are). You cannot assist and encourage someone in their sin without incurring sin upon yourself.
Look, everyone is good. God made them good; He made us all in His image and likeness! It is sin that damages and destroys this image. Let us try our best to separate the sin from the sinner and remember that...
"We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son." [Homily of St. John Paul II at the 17th annual World Youth Day in Toronto]
4. Fear.
Fear is a tool of the enemy that is always meant to "freeze us" and draw us back from Christ. The only good fear is the Fear of the Lord, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit that draws us to a deeper reverence and awe of God and His majesty and places in us a fear of offending Him out of our abiding love for Him. A fear of going to hell is also good so long as it does not lead us to doubt and trust in God's mercy.
But, the fear of scorn, the fear of human rejection, the fear of human opposition, the fear of an unfavorable human opinion from others, the fear of the "cost" of discipleship, the fear of losing a friendship, the fear of how our lives might change, fear of losing our job, fear of persecution, fear of imprisonment for not offering services to a same-sex wedding, fear of death, etc... Yes, as Christians, we do not even fear death. These are all fears that, if we don't surrender these thoughts and fears over to Christ, could lead us to compromise our Faith and betray Christ. Any time we sense these fears within us, we must..
...take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. [2 Corinthians 10:5]
This means we need to just surrender it over to Christ and not constantly churn it around in our heads, which just gives the devil more leeway to bring you astray through fear and anxiety. We may "battle" these fears with God's Word...
In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world. [ John 16:33]
So, fear is another common temptation which Christians, if they are not rooted in their relationship with the Lord and vigilant about the enemy's tactics, may cower to.
This is why we as Christians need one another. We cannot be a Christian alone. Even God Himself does not exist in Himself alone: The Blessed Trinity - the one triune God - is three Persons living in an eternal communion and an eternal exchange of love. Yet they are one God, not three. (The Athanasian Creed helps expound this understanding more clearly, if you're interested). Let us continue to build one another up, support one another and encourage each other. And in this Year of Mercy, let us also not forget to exercise the Spiritual works of Mercy...
Instruct the ignorant
Counsel the doubtful
Admonish sinners
Bear wrongs patiently
Forgive offences willingly
Comfort the afflicted
Pray for the living and the dead.
I hope and pray that knowing these temptations will help you in your fidelity to God in these dark and trying times and that with sincerity you will take up the cross of being Christ's disciple.
I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 4:1-6