NOTES for Jam 1:13
At times, the very encounter with the word "temptation" in the Bible becomes a temptation. Many times Scripture speaks of certain temptations that God sends to a person, beginning perhaps with Gen. 22:1. At the same time, we read in the Lord's Prayer: "Lead us not into temptation." And today's verse says something else as well. So does God tempt us or not?
The point is that the word has two different meanings, which in modern language can be described as "testing" and "provocation." The difference lies in the goal of the event. Tests can be given to us, and in a certain sense all our life is a test, so that we pass through them and acquire the experience necessary for our maturing and growth in our relationship with God. It is not fitting for us to run away from such "temptations."
The goal of evil provocations is different. It is that we fall, move away from God, and take the path of self-will, lovelessness, and violence. "Temptations" of that kind never come from God; we ask God to deliver us from them. And, as the Lord Jesus says, when you ask, believe that you receive. Then only the tests sent by God will remain in our life, tests for which we can only thank Him.