The Cookie on the Counter

I’m not sure why Jane makes cookies. It’s clear I don’t need them. I think she does it just to test me.

It usually starts out well. “I’m not touching a single one of those things,” as she mixes the batter and puts them in the oven. It’s not long before the smell of warm cookies wafts through the house. Time to leave. Take a walk. Clear my head.

I come home again and there they are, heaped on a plate. It doesn’t look like she has touched a single one. I won’t either. It smells good. And so I resist. But later, they are still there. Can cookies talk? Because I think they are calling my name.

Resisting is fine, as long as it lasts. Sometimes it’s longer. Sometimes it’s a laugher. And the thing is, once you take one, well, the game is already lost. So you might as well eat … ten?

We don’t get points for resisting temptation, temporarily. Points, by the way, is not the point. The point would rather be that I pick a direction and stick with it. If I deviate from the path, whether after a mile, or a foot, I’m still in the ditch.

Now it’s not a sin to eat a cookie. I don’t think it is. Unless I promised God that I wouldn’t. Which I didn’t. I just promised myself, and I’m not God. Is that ok? I don’t know. I just feel a little sick from eating, you know, ten cookies.

But the point that I would like to make is this: none of us who give in to temptation know the difficulty of truly resisting so long as we give in, whenever it is that we give in. If we resist a particular temptation, and then give in, and then resume resisting again, we still don’t really know what it’s like to resist temptation. And so we cannot fully appreciate Jesus. How so? Because of this verse:

“For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15 NAS95)

How long did Jesus resist temptation? For the whole course. He never once gave in. He always resisted. And it didn’t have to do with just one area, or some silly thing, like cookies. It had to do with every area of life - every single temptation. And the significance of this? He understands all our dilemmas, since his temptations were more difficult than ours, because He never gave in. Not once.