If I'm dieting and while driving down the freeway I see a billboard for fried fast-food at the next exit, I am faced with three choices: 1) I can ignore the thought and put it quickly out of my head, 2) I can ruminate over the thought for a few miles, considering how delicious such food would be and potentially letting it weaken my resolve for next time, or 3) I can lay into the horn as I quickly cut across three lanes to indulge in fried-food without a second thought. Three choices, three different outcomes. But there is one thing they all have in common: all three are potential outcomes from being tempted by a billboard. I did not put the billboard there in the first place. Subsequently, I am not responsible for having seen it. Similarly, temptations are laid along our pathways throughout life. We will not be judged for being tempted -- the Lord knows this will happen. We will only be judged by how we respond to that temptation. This is a part of how His plan of agency works.
2 Nephi 2:16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.
LESSON LEARNED: Being tempted is not sin, and we won’t be held accountable for confronting it. But we will reap rewards or consequences based on how we respond to those temptations.
FEEDBACK: HAVE YOU EVER STRUGGLED WITH TEMPTATION, THINKING THAT YOU WOULD BE JUDGED FOR SIMPLY BEING CONFRONTED BY IT?
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