Sunday 11 Aug 2013

Sunday Reading: Matthew 4:1-11

Key Verse: Matthew 4:6
6  And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Devotion:
After Jesus had been baptised, He went out into the wilderness as He was guided by the Holy Spirit and there He fasted for forty days and forty nights. That in itself is a miracle, but we will not dwell on that because it is what follows that I wish to explore. Each time we hear another story from the bible we hear something else as the Holy Spirit talks to us. This time, whilst reading through these verses after hearing it being taught again, I marvelled at the cunning of Satan.

He does not just throw a temptation at us now and again but will wait for the perfect moment before subtly lobbing the single temptation toward us that will most likely get a response from us! Jesus had been alone for a long time and was hungry so the evil one threw in the temptation of food, that Jesus would make it Himself to break His dependence on God the Father. But Jesus remembered what had been written before and quoted the scriptures.

The next temptation was thrown at Jesus in a twisted way. Jesus would have been weary from being hungry so Satan misquotes the scriptures to try and trip Him up! The number of times that I have had the scriptures misquoted at me, even in this last week, is becoming a worrying trend! People are abusing God’s Word to get their own way. There is only one truth and we must never abuse it! Christ’s response was to uphold the name of God and His ways.

The last temptation was a bit desperate! Satan blatantly lied and promised Jesus the whole world if only He would bow down before him instead of to God! If we watch our lives carefully we may well be able to spot the desperate measures that others will take when they know they are losing the fight. Sometimes it is a scowl that would shatter a gargoyle, sometimes it is a string of obscenities; whatever it is, we know we have God on our side and we know we have already won the battle – we just have to make sure we keep depending on God!

Points to Ponder:
Are your temptations getting tough to ignore?

How much do you depend on God’s Word?