When Desire Becomes a Parent

Observe. James says no one should say, when tempted, that God is tempting them, because God cannot be tempted by evil and does not tempt anyone. Instead each person is tempted by their own desire, which drags them away and entices them. Then desire conceives and gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death. The language is deliberately that of pregnancy and birth, a process with stages, each stage growing out of the one before.

Interpret. The first thing James removes is the excuse. Trials come from outside and are permitted by God for our maturing, as he said earlier in the chapter. Temptation to sin comes from inside, from the desire we carry. The second thing he offers is a warning about time. Sin does not arrive full grown. It is conceived, it develops, it is born, and only later does it reach its deadly maturity. There is a window, usually a long one, in which it can be refused.

Apply. Where in your life is desire currently being dragged along toward something you have not yet done? What would it mean to interrupt it at the stage of enticement rather than waiting until it has been born? And can you say honestly that God is good, that he gives only good gifts, so that the desire loses some of its pull?