Testing versus Tempting

I was reading The Good Book the other day, in fact it was tuesday I believe, just after my softball game. I deicided to take a look a the orginal straight shooter James. The book of James is one of the most dead on all truth no mercy books in the bible. I came across this passage

"Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will recieve the crown of life, which God has promised those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, an he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has fully concieved gives birth to sin, and sin fully grown brings forth death." James 1:12-15

And later on in chapter two we come across this passage in verse 21 "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Issac upon the altar?"

For some reason I had this inspiration to go and cross reference this passage back to Gensis where Abraham lays his one and only son upon an altar and is about to kill him because God told him to.

"After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." He said, "Take your son, your only son Issac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountians of which I shall tell you."

Genesis 22:1-2

There are several reactions i have after reading this passage. WHAT?!!!! WHY!!!? and blantly NO!! I could not do what Abraham does as he willingly with a true servants attitude travels to a distant land and nearly kills his son to prove that he would obey God. This shows his ultimate devotion to God because Issac was his inheritance which was promised to Abraham by God. God said to him that his decsendants would he numerous like the stars of the sky or the sand of the beach. And all of this was to be through his one and only son Issac, whom God gave to him after he and his wife were way past age. Whom now God was telling him to kill. Abraham could have easily said no God, this is murder, or what about my inheritance. But rather he chose to have faith, awesome faith. Wow I wish I could be like him, and trust God this much when my circumstances are foul, hardly foul compared to this though. But known of this was my piont.

My point is that in James he says that God does not tempt us but in Gensis it says God tested... so are tempted and tested two different things. I think that they might be, but to me they seem the same. A decision to make, right or wrong, but in one situation it is God setting up this circumstances and in the other it is merely the result of our human nature, both what it is now and what it was with Adam and Eve. So my question still is what is the difference between tempted and tested. I have been thinking about it for several days and I have yet to figure it out. I am in no way questioning God or the validity of his word, i am merely trying to understand it.

Oh and just to make this post longer Jame chapter 3 is a good chapter to read and very difficult to do