Another form of trial is temptation, but if God instigates tests, would he also tempt any to do evil?  James makes clear that would violate his nature.  So how does the follower of Christ distinguish between trials, by origin or motive?

When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.  (James 1:13-14)

πειρασμός peirasmos (G3986) translates trial but is also the word translated ‘temptation’.

This then could be confusing for earlier James is saying the Christian should ‘consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials (peirasmos) of many kinds’ (ibid 1:2), indicating that trials come from a good, indeed Godly source.

Context is key and the literal translation makes the distinction clearer:

Let no one say, being tempted ‘From God I am tempted,’ for God is not tempted of evil, and Himself doth tempt no one, and each one is tempted, by his own desires being led away and enticed, (ibid 1:13-14 Young’s Literal Translation)

God is not tempted of evil, as any are tempted of God.  Temptations do not originate from God.  So, a trial originates from God to prove and improve Godly character and faith; it is to the benefit of the subject, whereas a temptation is always to the detriment.

But James says something else, as profound as it is surprising.  That each person is the author of their own temptation.  While Scripture records Satan tempting Jesus in the Judean desert – note also that he is led by the Spirit to do so (Matthew 4:1) – James warns the follower of Christ not to be so quick as to ascribe blame to an external agent.  After all, if a man or woman can be the author of their own downfall, Satan has no need to interfere!

Now this is very much flies in the face of common Christian belief that God tests us and Satan tempts us.

James describes the process:

…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. (ibid 1:14-15)

Paul tells the Corinthians:

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Clearly, if the temptation is self-generated, it is therefore in the gift of individual to do something about it.  This makes uncomfortable reading, because it is in the nature of humankind to blame someone else for their sinning.  Remember the first temptation and the blame-game that followed, when God confronts Adam:

‘Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?’

 The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’

 Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’

 The woman said, ‘The snake deceived me, and I ate.’  Genesis (3:11-13)

The writer of Hebrews is as equally uncompromising as James and Paul, making the comparison to Jesus, who experienced every temptation ‘common to man’, plus one not so, to forego the rigours of the cross, the sacrificial shedding of his blood.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.  And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

 ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.’ (Hebrews 12:4-6)

This passage also shows that exposure trials and temptation is the discipline akin to that a loving father, who corrects his children

The word chastens is παιδεύω paideuó (Strong’s Greek 3811) and it means to train children, including be means of chastisement, that is with beatings.  It does not sound pleasant and nor is it.  Such is the addiction to sin, human will needs to be broken before God’s will prevails.

When any pray to the Heavenly Father as Jesus taught us: ‘your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as is heaven’, the invitation and acknowledgement is for God to put them to the test.  As the prayer progresses, forgiveness of wrongdoing is dependent on forgiving others, critically aligning to God’s will and Jesus commandment to love others.  Yet, the Lord’s prayer also includes:

And lead us not into temptation (peirasmos),
but deliver us from the evil one.  (Matthew 6:13)

Jesus is giving his disciples license to plead to their Heavenly Father to be spared testing and trials, aware as He is of the vulnerability and weakness of all his followers.  In this too, also all would pray to be delivered from evil, or the ‘evil one’.  While this could look forward to the last days of the antichrist, every day the prayer is to not follow our own evil desire through to sin and death as James outlined.

The difference between temptation and trial is ultimately motive.

From his goodness and love, God tests his people to strengthen; and men and women who tempt God by resisting him.  This is not immediately obvious, but the writer of Hebrews provides a passage for the Tanakh (Psalm 95:7-11 from the Septuagint) to elucidate:

So, as the Holy Spirit say,

 ‘Today, if you hear his voice,
     do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the wilderness,
where your ancestors tested and tried me,
though for forty years they saw what I did.
That is why I was angry with that generation;
I said, “Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.”
So I declared on oath in my anger,
“They shall never enter my rest.’  (Hebrews 3:7-11)

Adding the warning:

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. (ibid 3:12)

Therefore, the believing heart welcomes the discipline of God, rejoices in His tests and trails and resists temptation.