My personal Testimony of Temptations

 

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) 

In life, we face so many temptations; some are natural and other supernatural. Temptation by definition comes from the Hebrew word (NSH) and Greek word (Peirozo ) which means : proving, trying, testing .

The Bible definition is much more explicit. God does not tempt His people. James 1:13 says “Let no man say when he is tempted ( peirozo) , I am tempted by God”

God does not tempt us. Temptation comes from the devil. It started in the beginning when Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden. The bible says that it was through yielding to temptation that Eve gave way in satisfying her “desire” nature, by gratifying her appetites.

Since then, humanity is confronted by many temptations; one of those appetites can get the best of us if we allow them to do so. Intemperance and extreme indulgence can so easily overcome us if we fail to maintain self-control. The bible admonishes us to be “Temperate in all things”.

Notice that, after the revival came in that new local church, the devil rose against me one more time in another way. Then persecutions started to emerge from the church. Jealousy, racism and hatred were part of the things I endured.

One day, one of the church leaders invited me to his house before the main evening prayer service. Then he urged me to have a meal with him. I refused, but he begged me to do so. He seemed to be a very nice person, I assumed. I thought he was asking me to eat the food out of love, however, I did not know that he had already poisoned the food.

I was pleased to share a meal with him at his request. After we had eaten it, we went to the church to attend the service. I thank God that after many days since I was not affected at all; I looked very well instead.  It follows that two weeks later, I started feeling unwell to the point I was not able to do anything. Days after days, my condition got worse; some parts of my body lost energy or ability.  I went to the hospital for diagnostic, but the result determined there was nothing wrong with me. Therefore, the only thing left was to pray. Subsequently, I prayed unto God, asking him why this was happening to me. Then He revealed to me that one of the leaders tried to kill me by poisoning the food.

When I found out about it, I spoke to one of my closest friends in the church, and then we prayed about it and asked God to heal me. In fact I told the Lord to confirm who did that on Sunday morning service.

When we got to the church on Sunday, everything went well, given that we had Holy Communion that morning. During the supper of the Lord, the same leader was asked to give thanks to God for the bread and the drink of communion; He then opened his bible according to the church custom before partaking it, and he read in the book of 1 Corinthians 11 : 27- 29 , which says:” so then whoever eats the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in any unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and in this way let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgement to him if he does not discern the body.”

As soon as he had finished reading the word, he suddenly, started crying bitterly. He then left the communion bread and drink and came where I was sitting to make a confession unto me. He confessed all that he did against me and told me that he hated since the first day I came to that church. He told me he did not like the way God used me mightily in their church. So out of jealousy, he made up his mind to harm me. And after having realized that nothing wrong had happened to me he got scared; therefore he decided to make a confession”.

He had tears in his eyes when he did that and so everybody was staring at him. He then asked for forgiveness. I forgave him after all and we prayed together. Then, he went back to distribute the supper of the Lord.