pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: temptation


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Seek God

Reading: Judges 4: 1-7

Verse Three: “They cried to the Lord for help”.

Sometimes we find ourselves crying out to God because of something we have done.  Sometimes it is because life has brought us a trial or circumstance.  In either case we find ourselves at the point the Israelites find themselves.  Their sin has led God to give them over to a foreign king.  King Jabin cruelly oppresses them.  They know why they are being oppressed and they take it for 20 years.  Finally they have had enough.  Verse three tells us that then, “They cried to the Lord for help”.  In life, w all get to this place at times.

The Israelites experience this cycle over and over again.  Temptation leads to sin, continued sin leads to punishment, punishment leads to prayer, prayer leads them back to God, God responds and restores.  The sins are usually following other gods, not following the one true God.  And always, always, always, God waits patiently for His people to return to Him.  And He loves them again like the transgression never even happened.  It is an amazing love and an amazing grace.

In faith the Israelites returned to prayer.  Through prayer the possibility of God’s action became real.  The possibility lead to expectation and hope.  Living into the expectation lead to action on their part.  Deborah called Barak and he gathered an army, expecting God to lead.  And He did.

We may be in the midst of something today.  The trial may come tomorrow or next year.  Maybe the Holy Spirit is convicting us of a sin in our life.  Whatever and whenever, our response should be the same as the Israelites.  May our faith in God lead us to our knees as we seek God’s hand to be at work.  May we expectantly live, being open to and aware of how God goes to work, seeking to come alongside of God to do our part, seeking His redemption or restoration or simply guidance.  God has an amazing love and an amazing grace to share with us, His children.  May we seek God today.


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Choose

Reading: Joshua 24: 1-3a and 14-25

Verse 14: Now choose the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness.

Joshua comes to the people and asks them to choose who they will serve.  He asks them three times, each time reminding them of the temptations of other gods.  Joshua has seen the people go astray and God lets him know that this will continue to be the challenge.  Their forefathers worshiped other gods in the past, they experienced the worship of other gods in Egypt, and they even made a golden calf to worship while Moses was up on the mountain talking with God.

Joshua asks three times and the people respond three times that they will worship God alone.  Joshua reminds them that God is a jealous and holy God.  Three times, just to make sure.  This battle to choose God over idols continues to this very day.  Each day we must choose which God or many gods we will serve.  It is a daily battle that begins as we awaken each day.  Prayers for God to lead and guide us only begins the battle.  Throughout the day the Holy Spirit is praying for us, reminding us, convicting us.  We cannot remain faithful to God without the help of the Holy Spirit.

The temptations and other gods are many.  We can chase after money or possessions, popularity or recognition, status or position, beauty or knowledge.  We can get caught up in envy, gossip, greed, gossip, gluttony, fear, doubt, worry.  We are in no shortage of things or idols to tempt, lure, and pull us away from God.  The enemy is powerful.  But God is greater.  Through the Word, prayer, worship, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, we can walk faithful and holy lives.  May all that is at God’s disposal work in us this day to be the witnesses of His love and truth in our daily walk, bringing glory to God alone.


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A Willingness

Reading: 1st Thessalonians 2: 1-8

Verse Two: With the help of God we dared to tell you His gospel in spite of strong opposition.

Having faith can be difficult.  What is happening to the Thessalonians happens to believers today.  Their faith is wavering, the voices of the world are clamoring, Jesus has not returned yet.  In the midst of all that life can bring, it can be easy to have our faith waver.  Those voices of the world and the temptations of Satan can put us hard to the test.  As we look around at the world and perhaps even at our own lives, we can long for Jesus to return to redeem all things.

The culture of Paul’s world and the culture of Thessalonica is much like ours today.  The Christians are a minority within a culture and society that worships many false idols and chases after many earthly pleasures.  It can be a dangerous place to preach the gospel.  It was in Paul’s day too.  Fresh off a testing and trying experience in Philippi, Paul declares, “With the help of God we dared to tell you His gospel in spite of strong opposition”.  Not one to be deterred, Paul fondly recalls sharing the gospel in Thessalonica.  At times we too must dare to share  the gospel.  For Paul, it was well-received and a strong church emerged.  This letter comes some time after the initial visit and Paul is writing to encourage and to teach this new group of believers.

Paul states a couple of different ways that God is the center of it all.  He speaks as a man approved by God and tested by God.  He speaks with God as his witness, never seeking praise or approval from men.  As we seek to engage the least and the lost of our communities, we too must begin here.  God must be at the core and we must lead out as God guides and directs, keeping our focus on God alone.  Paul says that he was “like a mother caring for her little children”.  This is the second imperative we get from today’s Word.  We must genuinely love those we share the gospel with.  This means a willingness to fully commit, to humbly serve, to offer all we can to help another grow closer to Jesus Christ.  May our focus be on God and on loving others as He first loved us; God will take care of the rest.


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Empty… Fill

Readings: Psalm 106: 1-6 and Philippians 4: 7-9

Keys verses: We have sinned… we have done wrong and acted wickedly (Psalm 106:6).  Whatever is true… right… pure… lovely… admirable… think about such things (Philippians 4:8).

Pairing today’s readings together yields a wonderful truth for our lives.  The Psalm leads us to seek a repentant heart, to admit our sins to God, to begin again to walk in step with His ways.  We are all sinful creatures, living in a world that is full of temptations and that glorifies many sins.  Satan is always at work in our lives, trying to pry his way into our hearts and minds, working on our bodily passions as well as our human frailties and weaknesses.  It is no wonder we occasionally sin.  However, it cannot stop there.  We cannot live with or in our sin.  Each day we must come before God to be honest with God and ourselves, to name our sins, to repent and seek His forgiveness for this time and God’s strength for the next time.  To do all this is essential because it makes space for God in our lives as it clears away all the gets in the way of our relationship with Him.

Paul speaks of what can fill this space created by confessing our sins.  Into that space created by releasing our sins and inviting God into our lives, Paul suggests we think about the things of God.  He writes, “Whatever is true… right… pure… lovely… admirable… think about such things”.  When we train our minds to focus on these things, then we begin to see the world, ourselves, and others as God sees them.  This will help us to walk as Jesus walked – loving God and loving neighbor.  Walking this way will not only strengthen us in our battle with Satan, it will also lead us to have a thankful and grateful heart within us.  Once we are emptied, then He can fill us up.

When we honestly confess our sins and empty ourselves of these burdens, then we are opening ourselves up for God’s participation in our lives.  This is my prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right Spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).  May it be so today.  


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Delve Deeper

Reading: Matthew 13: 24-30

Verse 24: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

Today’s parable immediately follows the parable of the sower with the four soils and the parable’s explanation.  Just as the audience is nodding in approval as they wrap their heads around this teaching, Jesus begins another parable with, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field”.  Yes, God is good so He would sow good seed.  Many would have thought back to the thorny soil in the last parable and connected the thorns with the evil one.  It is a logical connection.  But maybe not.  This is the nature of the parables.  They are intended to make us think, to lead us to delve deeper than the surface understandings, to challenge and push us forward, to pull us up short and to lead us to repentance.

Most folks who walked up as Jesus began the parable would understand the opening scene.  Evil has always existed in our world and evil men do evil things.  In almost all fields,weeds seem to be a constant presence.  And no, I did not plant weeds in my garden; but, yes, there are a lot of them.  So maybe the people there that day just dismissed the weeds as the ‘staff’ of everyday life.  For some, maybe Satan was the planter.  After all, he sows temptations into our lives all the time.

But then comes the twist.  No, don’t pull the weeds.  Let them grow alongside the wheat.  Huh?  The audience with the nodding heads would have become still.  Quizzical faces would have developed.  I imagine a long pause here by Jesus – for full effect.  Today we read the last verse and our mind connects to the judgment that will come.  Weeds to hell, good crop to heaven. Got it!

But do we?  Was or is that Jesus’ meaning?  What else could it mean?  How else could it apply to our lives?  What if the parable is about how we mature in our faith, not removing the sin until our roots are strong enough not to fall right back into it?  Just one of many possible applications!  Think, delve deep, wrestle with the things of God, find meaning for yourself.  God’s blessings on the journey.


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Who Will Rescue?

Reading: Romans 7: 15-25

Verse 15: For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Paul’s honest passage surely hits home.  The struggle with sin is one we all face on an almost daily basis.  Even as one matures in the faith and the daily walk of life seems to be going quite well, all of a sudden sin rears its ugly head and we wonder where that came from.  Paul also begins by expressing that he does not understand how this happens.  He writes, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”.  As a disciple of Jesus Christ, we want to follow Him daily and to have our lives reflect His love to others.  This is what we want to do.  Yet we often fail to do this all of the time.  Instead we get caught up in ourselves and in the smallness of life and we find ourselves doing what we hate.

Paul attributes the cause of this struggle to the sin living within him.  He is aware of the desire to sin that lives in him and in all of us.  It is so because we are of the world.  All around us are reminders to gratify self instead of seeking to please God.  Satan is constantly at work within us, trying to bring us off the narrow path that leads to true life and onto the wide road that leads to death.  The evil one also tries to have a hand in preventing us from doing the good we desire to do.  He brings up doubts and fears and makes us question ourselves, making it sometimes hard to do the good we desire to do.

It would seem that all is lost.  It is not.  In verse 22 Paul writes, “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law”.  For all who profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we too know the light and love that lives in our hearts.  It is the courage and strength to face each day and to do the good we desire to do.  It is also the peace that passes understanding that helps us past the storms and past the doubts and fears we face.  Paul closes by admitting that he is weak and wretched.  So are we.  But we are not alone.  Paul asks, “Who will rescue me”?  The same one who rescues us all.  The passage concludes with the answer to this question: Jesus Christ!  To He alone who can rescue, we join Paul in saying thanks be to God.


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Way of Life

Reading: Romans 6: 12-14

Verse 14: For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Paul opens by encouraging us not to let sin rule in our mortal bodies.  It is not that Paul thought we would or should never sin once we accept Jesus, but that we should not live in sin.  For Paul, sin should not be our way of life.  Pursuing God’s righteousness should be our way of life.

Of course, our way of life is a choice.  Once sin gains a foothold it can be hard to root out.  Temptation is a reality.  Each day we wrestle with what we should do versus what the body desires.  Once that temptation takes root it begins to grow and eventually can lead to sin.  This is living a life of sin for Paul.  When we allow sin to take hold, it begins to rule how we make our decisions.  It becomes our way of life.

God, of course, hopes for us to make the decision to do right and He sent us the Holy Spirit to help us make that good choice.  But God knew we would struggle with sin, so He sent us Jesus.  In and through the blood of Jesus we can become pure and righteous again and again.  It is not a pass to sin over and over again or a type of “get out of jail free” card.  The unending grace and mercy and forgiveness is God saying ‘I love you’ over and over again.  It is God saying I love you no matter what.  The mercy, grace, and forgiveness we receive from God lets us know how much God loves us.  It is forever and always.

This day may we choose God as our way of life.  This day may we pursue righteousness.  And this day, may we go forward knowing we are dearly loved.


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Know and Follow

Reading: John 10: 1-7

Verses 3 and 4: …the sheep listen to his voice… his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

In a devotional I read, there is a story about sheep following their shepherd.  As the writer sat and observed, a real shepherd walked along a very narrow and dangerous path along a steep ridge.  One after another, several dozen sheep dutifully followed along the path.  One after another they walked along a path that none would have taken on their own.

This little snippet reveals much about the typical shepherd-sheep relationship.  First, the shepherd was willing to lead his flock through dangerous placed because he knew greener pastures lay ahead.  Second, the sheep knew and trusted the shepherd.  The sheep know their shepherd’s voice and will follow him where he leads.  In fact, sheep will run from a voice they do not know.  Third, the shepherd cares for his sheep.  He is bringing them to a place with good food.  He will protect the sheep, both along the journey and once they arrive. He will keep them together and will defend them for wolves, robbers, …  He genuinely cares for the sheep.

In our passage, Jesus is using the shepherd-sheep analogy to illustrate our preferred relationship with Him.  Jesus wants to be our shepherd.  He wants to lead us to “green pastures” – to life in the full.  He wants to protect us from the dangers and temptations of the world.  He was even willing to lay down His life to do so.  For our part, we are the sheep.  We need to know His voice.  We study His voice in the Bible and we learn to recognize it when the Spirit nudges and whispers to us.  We come to be able to differentiate Jesus’ voice from the many voices of the world.  These other voices are voices we should run from.  Once we come to know Jesus’ voice, He wants us to follow.  He will lead us well.  For our part this means doing what Jesus did and loving as Jesus loved.

May we know the Good Shepherd’s voice and may we follow where He leads.


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Away for Me

Reading: Matthew 4: 1-11

Food is a natural temptation.  The forbidden fruit is more than Adam and Eve can bear.  In the desert, day after day of manna becomes more than the Israelites can take and they cry out to God.  In both cases, God is put to the test.  In today’s passage, food is again what is used to test God.  Jesus hasn’t eaten for forty days, so He must have been tempted.  And Satan wants to test God too – will the stones turn to bread?

The second temptation also tests God.  If Jesus does something foolish will God swoop in and rescue Him?  Will God come through?  It is a similar test of God.  In both of these cases, we often venture down similar roads.  We will do and say things that certainly test God, that must test God’s patience.  We are rarely brave enough to step boldly out in a faith that requires radical trust in God to intervene on our behalf.

In the last temptation, Jesus is offered power.  It is something we all want to one degree or another.  We like to be in control, to make our own decisions.  At times, we have all questioned our boss or someone else in authority and thought we could certainly do better if given the chance.  We are wired to succeed and to compete to be number one.  For Satan to offer the rule of the world to Jesus must have been tempting.  It would definitely be tempting to us – except the thought of bowing down to Satan is hard to fathom.  

If we are honest, there is much that we place in the role of what we worship.  It can be money, time, status, position, beauty…  When we worship or live for these things, we have really demoted God.  The more we pursue the things of this world, the further from God we venture.  It is here that we are most susceptible to Satan’s whispers and temptations.

In our story today, we see the solution to whatever temptation.  Just as Jesus stood boldly, may we too call on the power of God and say to the great tempter, “Away from me Satan!”


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Trials and Temptations

Reading: Matthew 4: 1-11

Jesus prepares for His ministry with a period of testing.  He fasts for forty days and is physically weak.  Satan comes then and tempts Jesus with food, trust, and power.  Food represents both our basic needs and our desires.  Is our life about pursuing these things and then giving what’s left to God?  Or do we first give to God, knowing that He loves us and will provide for all we need?  The second temptation partly involves trust.  We we step out or step forward, trusting that God will have our back?  And perhaps before this first step, did we seek God’s discernment and direction or did we just make our own plan?  When seek God’s will and when we obey His lead, there is no fear or lack of trust.  Power is the third temptation.  Worship Satan and all the world is yours.  We like to be in charge.  What a temptation!

In our own journey of faith, we are often tempted and often out to the test.  In our giving, do we obediently give our tithe or volunteer for that cause that pulls at our heart strings?  Or do we focus on what “has” to be done first or pay all the bills and then see if we have time or money left for God?  In those moments when the Holy Spirit nudges us to get involved or to offer our talents or to engage the stranger, do we trust that God will give us the words to say or will show us what to do?  Or do we apply excuses or rationalize away the opportunity?  And when we look at our priorities, do they reveal that God is #1 in our lives?  Or does ‘God’ fall somewhere down the list?  If one looked at our lives, they should see how we are investing our lives in God’s work in the world and in growing our own personal faith.  Is that what they would see?

Just as Satan tempted Jesus to rely on something other than God, he will also tempt us.  How we respond to or react to the above questions and scenarios indicated how successful Satan may be at drawing us away from God.  In this season of Lent, where we too are preparing ourselves for ministry, may the Lord our God strengthen and encourage us each day as we strive to walk as disciples of Jesus each and every day.