How to Fight Temptation: Build a Relationship with Jesus

Fr. Gary Thomas, Exorcist

A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is essential, I believe, to a person staying free from the forces of the demonic, from any temptations or leanings that might attract a person into the demonic, or any ways in which the demonic can attempt to try and seduce a person into the darkness.

I think a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is essential.

Now, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is much more than simply knowing about Christ. It’s knowing Christ, and I think in the culture in which we live, we have a tremendous Catholic educational system in this country and around the world.

I’m a complete product of Catholic education. I went through nine years of grade school, four years of high school, four years of college, and four years of the seminary.

Knowing about Jesus vs. Knowing Jesus

However, there’s a difference between knowing about the Church and knowing about Jesus Christ versus knowing not only who He is, but wanting to have a relationship with Him, a loving relationship, and being able to continue to fall in love with Jesus Christ on a daily basis.

That does not mean something dramatic.

It doesn’t mean it’s something that’s on my mind 24/7, but it does mean that Christ is on my mind on a daily basis, in prayer and outside of prayer, and that the relationship I have with Christ is not only through the sacraments, but through the people of God.

It means that my conscience has been formed by my parents, my teachers, my mentors, from the time I was old enough to understand till the present time.

It means I am aware that my words and my actions have the superimposition of faith over all that, and though I sin sometimes, all of that is essential to me having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

It’s essential that I know Christ well enough to know what He would expect from me, want for me, and hope for me, versus simply living and acting and moving and thinking and being in a way that is very unconscious of all of that.

How to Fight Temptation: It’s Deeper than Knowing the Rules

It’s a lot deeper than just simply understanding the rules of the Church or the values of the Church or the guidelines of the Church or knowing what all the rituals are about.

All of that and more is a way to express my relationship with Jesus Christ. It is expressed and ritualized in a variety of ways that give me something palpable to hold onto, but the relationship itself is very deep.

It’s very personal, and it’s very within me. It’s inner. It’s not something that I can measure.