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Perhaps the most twisted thinking that we Christians commonly fall for is the ridiculous notion that to be strongly tempted to sin suggests a person is ungodly. To be tempted is to be attacked by anti-God forces, just as Jesus was attacked. The more one refuses to be defeated, the more furious the fight becomes. Someone who always quickly gives in to the slightest sinful whim will never experience sinful urges with a fraction of the intensity that a more godly person suffers.
Picture Jim, a heroin addict reeling in the pangs of withdrawal. Whenever he let himself, he could steal a chemical fix. His flesh craves relief so intensely that the torment could not be greater if he were being flayed alive for his faith and at any time could end his agony by denying Jesus. Nevertheless, moved by his newfound passion for Jesus, he clenches his teeth and endures the horrors. Now see Darren, lounging in idle ease, blissfully unable even to imagine what a torturous craving for a chemical high would feel like. Never in his life has he even been offered an illicit drug. Who is the hero in this story? The one who has never had a drug battle in his life; who thinks his world is coming to an end if he so much as gets a pimple? If, later on, both were actually being tortured for their faith, which of them is more likely to honor his Lord?
To be tempted is to be afflicted with ungodly yearnings. It is only when temptation rages only when sin seems the most desirable thing in the universe that you have the chance to prove that you are committed to doing Gods will, rather than selfishly following your own desires. If to you a sin seems undesirable, there is nothing heroic in avoiding it. Anyone even the most self-serving, anti-God person on the planet would avoid a sin that repulses him. The proof of righteousness is when a person denies himself something his flesh cries out for.
Of course, to deliberately stir up a desire for sin is itself sin. Im not for a moment suggesting you do that. My point, however, is that lack of temptation does not make a person holy, any more than lack of opposition makes one a champion. Lack of desire for sin is no more proof of spiritual life than lack of desire is proof of physical life. Christlikeness means acting like Jesus in Gethsemane sweating as it were drops of blood. Everything within him screamed to flee from Gods will, and yet he forced himself to submit. That, not lack of temptation, is true holiness.
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