Why Do I Keep Struggling with the Same Temptation?
1) Direct Answer
You keep meeting the same temptation because the old nature is still being fed, a door has been left open, and the battle is being fought too much in your own strength instead of walking in the Spirit. Victory comes by full surrender to Jesus Christ, the infilling of the Holy Ghost, and cutting off the provisions that keep the cycle alive.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- The Bible says there’s a war inside: “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh… the flesh lusteth against the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16-17).
- God promises a way out every time: “God… will with the temptation also make a way to escape” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
- The door must be shut: “Make not provision for the flesh” (Romans 13:14). “Neither give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27).
- Watch and pray or you’ll enter into it again (Matthew 26:41).
- Real power is by the Spirit: “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8:13). “Be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).
- Bring it into the light: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13; 1 John 1:9).
- Overcome by the Blood and the Word: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11).
- Flee what inflames it: “Flee… youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22).
- Arm yourself with the Word: Jesus answered every temptation with “It is written” (Matthew 4:1-11; Ephesians 6:17; Psalm 119:11).
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- You can’t starve and feed the same thing at once. If you feed the flesh, it rules; if you feed the inner man, he rules.
- Temptation returns where a door is still unlocked. Shut the door, and the thief loses access.
- Willpower alone grows weary; the Holy Ghost never does. Victory is not by grit but by surrender—Christ living in you.
Practical steps
- Repent specifically: Name the sin to God; renounce it. Ask for cleansing by the Blood (1 John 1:7-9).
- Shut the doors: remove triggers, access points, and companions that lead you there (Romans 13:14; Matthew 5:29-30).
- Submit and resist: First submit to God, then resist the devil; he will flee (James 4:7). Don’t argue with temptation—flee it (2 Timothy 2:22).
- Fill, don’t just empty: Seek to be filled with the Holy Ghost daily (Acts 2:38-39; Ephesians 5:18). Pray, worship, and keep the Word in your mouth.
- Use the Sword: Memorize two or three Scriptures that answer your specific battlefield; speak them when the thought first knocks (Matthew 4; Psalm 119:11).
- Stay in the light: Walk in fellowship; confess your faults to a faithful, praying believer (James 5:16). Isolation fuels bondage; light breaks it.
- Watch and pray: Set times for prayer and the Word; temptation thrives where watchfulness is absent (Matthew 26:41).
- If you stumble: Don’t settle. Run to the Blood at once, get up, and keep walking (Proverbs 24:16; 1 John 2:1).
Short reinforcement
Now notice, God has already provided the escape and the power. Yield to the Spirit, close the doors of the flesh, take the Word in your mouth, and walk on. The same Jesus who saved you can keep you.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Getting in the Spirit
61-0428 §20
...e says, "As the dog goes to its vomit, and a sow to the wallow..." And, as a dog ought to know, if the vomit made him sick enough to get it out the first time, it'll do the same thing the second time. And if sin of the world will make a man realize that he's wrong once, to make him repent, it'll do it the second time. So why not keep away from the thing anyhow? If it made you sick and you got rid of it, stay away from it. Keep out of the very appearance of evil.
Led by the Spirit
59-0407 §24
...own in the colored district. I looked at my watch, and it was ten minutes after seven. "Oh," I thought, "I missed my plane." But something just kept urging me, "Go on. Just keep on moving." I trust that that same Spirit tonight when you're prayed for, whether you're prayed for here at the platform or not, will let you get a vision of Christ's promise to you, and just urge you to keep on. "I can just move one finger." Just keep on moving that finger till you can move a hand, and then an arm, and then a leg, and so f...
Perseverant
64-0305 §18
...onators come up to make a show out of it---threw down their rods. Moses knowed who he had talked to. He knowed who he had believed, and he was persuaded that He was able to keep that which he'd committed to Him against the hour. Moses stood still. Then the serpent of Moses eat up the serpent of the magicians. And we are taught that that same thing will repeat again. Maybe not in the same manner, but it will repeat again in the last days. For as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so will they resist the truth. Mose...
Looking at the unseen
59-0410 §35
...hat sound barrier. But when once it gets beyond the sound barrier, then its speed's unlimited. It can just fly free. And the church and you sitting here tonight, oh, you're struggling and struggling, and God's a-pulling to you and showing you things. If you can ever get a-past that sin barrier of unbelief, then unlimited revival will break out to the United States and everywhere, if you can go beyond that sound barrier, that sin barrier of unbelief. "Oh, is it true? Does it mean me? Could I be healed? Could I be sa...
Why?
59-0813 §24
...t's what's breaking up the nation today, breaking up the whole world, is sin. And there's plenty of cure for it. But the people won't take it. They don't want nothing to do with it. Just like the man sitting on the doctor's steps. Here comes a man out had the same disease and he's well. Another one comes out and said, "That's fanaticism. I ain't going in there." He will die there, because he rejects to take the medicine. And so is it. A man will die and sink into dark eternity without knowing God if he refuses the...