Does God set us up to do wrong and then punish us when we do?

Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I amtempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone

James 1. 13

One of the common problems we all have is our weakness to resist temptation. It is the same for every one of us. We often explain it away by saying ‘we are only human’ or ‘it’s my weakness’ or similar phrases. The simple fact is that we are flawed by nature and there are things in life that we find very hard to resist. Having said all that when a person gets saved they become a new creation, 2 Cor. 5. 17. We will still feel the struggle which is caused by temptation but we now have new life and the Spirit of God to strengthen us and keep us from falling.

Our verse today is saying that God does not have a problem with evil. He is not attracted by it. This is best highlighted in the life of the Lord Jesus. When the Devil came to tempt him it is stated that there was nothing in Him that responded to his advances, John 14. 30. So simply put God does not struggle with evil nor did the Lord Jesus. 

If only we could say that; but things are so different for us.

We all have a daily battle, see Romans 7, with right and wrong. Some days are worse than others and some things are more of a temptation than others. Resisting evil in our thinking is a problem but once a person is saved their conscience is keener than before. They also have the Holy Spirit to appeal to for help.

In closing do not lose sight of this. God never tempts us to do evil. He may test us at times but it is never his purpose to make it easy for us to sin. In fact he wants us to learn to resist temptation and to be aware of our weaknesses. Submit to God. 

'Resist the Devil and he will flee from you,' James 4. 7.