When it is full-grown, [it] gives birth to death.
—James 1:15
“Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (Jas 1:14–15).
James begins with a fishing metaphor: the bait on the fisherman’s hook entices the fish; once hooked, the fish is dragged away.
James notes five stages of temptation, from inception to conclusion: temptation, conception, birth, growth, and death. D.C. Allison called it “The Fool’s Biography.”
Are you consigned to hell because you experience temptation? No! Temptation is an inescapable element of our experience in this life. Its prevalence and persistence diminish as you grow in faith, but your spiritual maturity is not defined by the infrequency of temptation but by the infrequency of yielding to it.
Don’t take the bait.