“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.” James 1:6In many, if not most cases, temptation enters through the doorway of our minds. When Satan wanted to lead the first man and woman into sin, he started by attacking the woman's mind. That is why Paul warned the Corinthian believers, "But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3).
We need to protect our minds. This is where the enemy will hit us, because we can reach into the past through our memories and into the future through our imaginations.
When the children of Israel were in the wilderness, their first step into trouble was looking back. God had miraculously delivered them from Egypt. He fed them with manna from heaven every day. Granted, it was manna every single day. They had tried all of the recipes in Moses' cookbook, 101 Ways to Eat Manna. But they remembered the food they had in Egypt. Isn't it interesting that they thought it was a lot better than it really had been? They let their imaginations run wild as they remembered the scraps of food that were given to them by the Egyptians and then magnified those scraps into feasts.
That is how the devil will work against us. He will make a few good times we had seem like the greatest times we ever had. But he is a liar. Jesus said, "No one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). So don't look back.
Temptation starts with a thought, and the tempter needs cooperation from the tempted. That is why we need to guard our minds.
