What is the toughest temptation you have ever faced? Or what was the worst temptation you yielded to?
When I was a young adult, I made a decision about how I wanted to live my life. It was neither a wise decision nor a spiritually-healthy one. Of course, God didn’t want me to live that life, so He reminded me of how my mother had raised me and the things I used to believe. Sadly, I was determined to live my life my way, and told God outright even if it meant losing heaven, it was my life to live and to leave me alone.
Thankfully, He didn’t listen to me. And even more thankfully, He gave me a God-fearing mother. I know that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, but the prayer of a mother is the most powerful force on this Earth. The strength of a mother’s prayer asking God for mercy and grace on behalf of her child can bring about miraculous change.
My mother not only prayed for me, but she asked all of her friends to pray for me. I had an entire army of prayer warriors with my mother as their captain. It is because of her unceasing prayers on my behalf—because God knows I wasn’t praying for myself—that I’m able to share this experience with you. So, mothers, take courage, your prayers are powerful and God hears them.
“The power of a mother’s prayers cannot be too highly estimated. She who kneels beside her son and daughter through the vicissitudes of childhood, through the perils of youth, will never know till the judgment the influence of her prayers upon the life of her children. If she is connected by faith with the Son of God, the mother’s tender hand may hold back her son from the power of temptation, may restrain her daughter from indulging in sin. When passion is warring for the mastery, the power of love, the restraining, earnest, determined influence of the mother, may balance the soul on the side of right.” The Adventist Home, 266
“The strongest temptation cannot excuse sin. However great the pressure brought to bear upon the soul, transgression is our own act. It is not in the power of earth or hell to compel anyone to do evil. Satan attacks us at our weak points, but we need not be overcome. However severe or unexpected the assault, God has provided help for us, and in His strength, we may conquer.” Amazing Grace, 254
I know that God allows us all to make our own choices, and sometimes those choices, like mine, go completely against what He intends for our lives. We must be vigilant, because the devil knows just how to tempt us to sin. We must reach out to God for the strength to resist not only Satan’s temptations but the willfulness of our own nature.
“If you cannot control your impulses, your emotions, as you may desire, you can control the will, and thus an entire change will be wrought in your life. When you yield up your will to Christ, your life is hid with Christ in God. It is allied to the power which is above all principalities and powers. You have a strength from God that holds you fast to His strength; and a new life, even the life of faith, is possible to you.” Mind, Character, and Personality, Vol. 1, 123