“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (v.13)

God always provides a way of escape for us. He never gives us more than we can bear. Does any one wonder what that Way is? It is Jesus--He is the Way. (Jn. 14:6) It is always the same Way, there is no other. Yes, the Way never changes, it is always the same. Notice also that all temptations that come our way are “common to man”. In other words, we are not going to go through anything that all mankind doesn’t go through. For this reason, as well as others, I believe that we will never be tested or tempted to the extent that JOB was. Therefore, when we are tempted, we can be assured that if anyone has made it through that same sort of tempting, we can too. If others could make it, we can. This, to me, is a wonderful thing to know. I will never be overwhelmed with temptation to the point where I cannot resist, because Jesus won’t allow it. This means that when I fall to temptation, I do it deliberately! That is, after all, the real gist of the matter, it is the emphasis of sin. When Satan deceives us, we still don’t have to succumb to the temptation, we can escape it, resist it. This puts the blame right on our laps, where it belongs. It shows that “there is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). By the way, the temptation contains the way of escape, as our verse says; it comes “with the temptation” so it is there for all of us.

Also note that “God is faithful” to us, yet we find it so hard to be faithful to Him. What if He were as faithful to us as we are to Him? What a mess that would be! We can rely on Him because He is faithful. There is much value to faithfulness. It is stability; stability in others, that we can depend on when we need them, and stability in us that causes us to be reliable also. Can God rely on you? I can only hope that He will rely on me.