Christians know that the unholy trinity in the lives of all of us is the world, the flesh, and the devil.  These three realities provide the grist for the temptation mill that grinds our lives to mash.  How do they work?
     The world provides a deceptive picture.  It paints sin in its most alluring and captivating colors.  It plays up the pleasures and cancels the consequences.  It gives us a come-on, and we respond.
     The devil points to those alluring pictures and croons into our consciousness the happiness we'll gain by partaking of them.  While the world gives us the product, Satan provides the advertising.
     The flesh is that "person" inside us who dances to the world's tune and Satan's lyrics.  We can call him the old nature.  He's a "responder."  He sees the picture, hears the ad line, and tells himself, "Yes, I want that."
     James would encourage us to "submit yourselves, then, to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7).  The word promises us, "The Lord delights in the way of the man whose steps He has made firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand" (Psalm 37:23-24).  Satan's grand plans are squashed by God's guidance.
     The words of Jude are another potent assurance:  "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy" (Jude 24).
     We can flee.  We can withstand.  We can condemn the evil around us.  When we stumble, God can lift us, cleanse and not allow the stumble to be a permanent fall.