How to fight temptation?

[arunangelo]

To sins is to go against God and our fellow human beings. To fight temptation therefore, we must trust God because when we trust Him we will feel secure; and when we feel secure we will not seek sinful ways to solve our problems. To trust God we must believe in His infinite love which propelled Him to sacrifice His own life in order to free us from sin. To believe in His love is to desire that love in our heart. When we have that love in our heart we will love our fellow human beings. This would prevent us from offending them. Furthermore, when we love God we will avoid sin because we will not want to offend God by sinning.

To love God we must meditate on His love which He expressed by dying on the cross (in order to compensate for the sins we committed against Him); and ask Him to make His love the life of our heart. Furthermore, we must accept His will unconditionally in all matters of our life.

We must always be on guard against temptations that look good on the outside but are intrinsically evil. The simplest way to decipher if an act is against God is to find out if it is against God's laws and His natural order. If it is, it is never right, irrespective of how attractive it may look. If the temptation is very strong and hard to resist, we must pray for a pure and obedient heart.

[Telora]

We Jews don't talk about "sin" much. The concept isn't absent, but it's not a major focus of concern.

We tend to talk about mitzvot, plural of mitzvah, roughly "commandment" -- but with a different connotation than the English word. Why give a donation to a poor person? "It's a mitzvah." Comes out, roughly, a "good deed."

But again, "good deed" doesn't carry the connotation of "extra credit" as it does in English. What is called charity in English, and is regarded as a "virtue" in Christianity, is called tzedakah in Hebrew, which means justice. Giving to the poor, acting righteously, following the mitzvot -- that's only what we are expected to do, what it means to be a Jew.

Notice that there is no reference to God in there.

Maybe Christians have trouble with SIN and TEMPTATION because that's what you talk about and think about all the time. Paul's advice was better:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

"We become what we resist."

Judaism fascinates me, but Abraham is one of my heroes and i'm not fond of Paul.

LOL! I'm no big fan of Paul either; few Jews are. IMHO, he probably wasn't even Jewish. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and that one he got right.

Welcome to the forum. This is a nice place, and after reading your introduction, I look forward to some interesting conversations.

they're interesting, that's one word.

...but of all the bible characters he's the one i can relate to the most, the whole "called out of pagan lands" and then wandering in the desert trying to figure it out following an enigma.

Nice allegory for my life right now.

Abraham was the first convert, and my own spiritual father for ritual purposes.

Seriously. When I'm called to the Torah in services, my Hebrew name is "Dov Shmuel ben Avraham v'Sarah," "son of Abraham and Sarah."

35 years ago I was a Methodist minister, if you didn't know. I wandered in the wilderness a long time, too. Good guy, Abraham.

...since i'm onto something, wouldn't David be a good example in relation to this thread, he was full of temptations but look how he was treated for being true to himself?

Wouldn't it be more straight-forward to simply love humanity and avoid God being the love middle-man?

can't a person do both?

what's so straight forward about loving humanity? Sometimes you really have to work at it and they don't make it easy.