I don't fancy the word 'temptation' much...

From a religious point of view, everything (except your own person) is tempting, bad, evil.

I know this by experience. I had an acquaintance of mine, a woman, and every time I wanted to have a kindness to her, she looked at me as if I was the devil in disguise, trying to tempt her. It was sooo annoying! At that time, I had to stop seeing her 'cause she was always making me feel bad. This might be an extreme case...or not.

Then there's religious leaders who proclaim that reading Harry Potter tempt kids into black magic; watching Avatar tempts people into being atheists or worse, and so on.

Mind you, I do believe in God, but I am outside any religion in particular. I don't mean to be offensive to anyone here.

Also, in Abrahams-Hicks teachings, you can wish anything, the Universe will provide, and it'll be yours. There is abundance, and you're not depriving anyone of their share by wishing the same thing as other person. They encourage having desires (feel tempted?). So it's not bad to have wishes/desires. It has more sense to me.

And regarding to personal blessings, I don't think God cares about the individual. I figure he's more like a colective consciousness, Universal Force or so.

I will finish with my favourite quote, my motto:

"I can resist everything except temptation."
~Oscar Wilde.

BJ09

Temptation is caused by the erroneous belief that you need something external in order to be happy.

You don't.

As long as you have your basic needs met, you already have all of the ingredients necessary for happiness. Once that happiness is established, you can build on it by expanding your world, by doing those things we do in life that we call "the pursuit of happiness."

It's a bit of a paradox, but in order to get more, you have to be grateful for what you already have. And in order to pursue happiness, you must realize that you already have the capacity to be happy, simply by deciding to be.

To do otherwise is to believe that, because you don't have this thing for which you are tempted, that you are somehow incomplete.

It depends upon what your belief is. If you believe in the law of attraction then you know that what you receive is based directly on the thoughts or energy that you send out.

those who understand and stay within the codes of nature for humankind will be doing the 'proper/right thing',
by doing such there is minimal accumulation of 'unkind' consequences,
and your reward is a harmonious existence,
as strange as it may seem it is not god who blesses but the resultant of your choosen actions/thoughts.

There is saying that in the time of need and temptation, if you take it to the God in prayer, and by doing so, you allow yourself to be strengthened against the temptation, because you know that he has answered your prayer, and will not leave you unattended!

Also, when you reach out to God in prayers, and you allow him to be the navigator in your life, he becomes your strong rock to lean on in the time of temptation, to overcome all obstacles!

What you speak of is one of the seven crowns rewarded to Christians for their deeds as faithful friends of God. As a friend you do for and see if you can do more, as a servant you do for as much as is required.

We are the sons and daughters of God but God wants us to be friends as well, Abraham was considered a friend of God. (To those involved in Abraham/Hicks reading, not the same Abraham, Abraham of the Bible Abraham)

These crowns are Heavenly rewards not Earthly rewards.

Its tempting to play it safe. Vice is its own reward. Just dont hurt anyone and youll find a lot of fun in this life.

yes because if you resist temptation wanting and desire you are not stuck in illusion and you can experiance the truth! the crown of life is given to those who suffer stonning by ignorant people that does not see god! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Stephen James 1:12-16 discusses the process of being tempted, "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. it is a temptation in it self to not accept to be ignorant because it could save you from the ignorant that will stone you! think about it this way saint stephan could have been a coward and decided to act like all the ignorant that way he would have saved is life! it is always more easy to just close your eye to blind your self from the truth!