Don't Tempt Me!

When Satan tempted Jesus, he tried to stop Jesus from fulfilling His role. Temptation is not sin – Satan never tells us to do evil things; he plants the idea to do so. He knows that we are weak and plays to our weaknesses; that is why he is called the tempter. He wants to usurp the rule of God in our lives, and so he becomes a teller — somebody who tells us, and in that aspect of his character, he is able to tempt the wicked inclination that is within all of us. He wants to undo the good work of God in us and wants us to fail in our salvation.

If we decide to do evil, or in other words, go against the work of the Holy Spirit, then we have decided to do so – we have succumbed to Satan's temptation. We end up like Adam, who said, "my wife made me do it!" We pass the responsibility onto Satan. Jesus said ‘Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. We work out our salvation in fear because if we fail to live the regenerated life, we will lose it. That is why Jesus taught us to pray that the Father will protect us from falling into temptation. We must pray that the power of the Holy Spirit remain in us. The clause of walking with Jesus is that we must allow him to remain in us and us in him. The natural inclination of wickedness does not desire the holy to be among us and in us. The remaining of Jesus in us is a conditional clause. He lives in the regenerated soul who knows that it has become Christ’s kin.

If we remain in Jesus, then we know that temptation will not overcome us. That does not mean that we will never sin; it means that sin will never have a place in us. Our role as we grow in the nature of Christ is to overcome the wicked inclination - not to do what we want but to do what he desires. If we are being conformed to the image of the Son of God, then we must learn how to be his image..

We are informed by prophecy that in the end times, many will turn away from the truth. There will be those who are among us who do not belong with us. The wicked inclination lives among us, and yet we are unaware of it, sometimes. The believer must live with Christ, and he in them. When the Holy Spirit is allowed to move in power in us, when we give him freedom,  he will deliver us from evil. He will help us when we feel tempted. The transformation of walking with Jesus takes us further away from the old nature. Imagine a man sailing away from the dock. It is only a matter of time before he can no longer see the land  which he left. In our journey with Christ, we must get to a point where it is closer for us to be where we're going than where we left. We must get to the point of no return. It is my belief that the disciple of Christ is such a man. He must focus on where he is going and never look back.

Jesus knows our weaknesses. He was transformed into our likeness to understand them and to feel them. It was only in this image, the image of God’s created being,  that God could dwell amongst his creation. He came  to tell us that he had overcome the world and those who are in him will also be over-comers. We must realise that when Christ is with us, Satan, though he may tempt us as he did Christ on the Mount, will not overcome us. Satan was not afraid to be in the presence of Jesus. He came to kill and destroy the mission of Christ, and he wants to destroy the mission of Christ in us. God promises us  protection against evil, and that is why we must pay attention to the prayer that Jesus taught us before his ascension.  He tells us that we will not be alone and that he will send a helper. Why did Jesus tell us that a helper will come? Because He knew that we needed him. We need His mercy and grace every day in order to walk this earth and to be the reflectors of His light. We also must remember that though we desire to be with Him, to be in the high places, to be as his disciples were, they, too, were sometimes separated from Him. When we are not on the high paces, those glorious places, our role is to be on the Earth and to do what we have been called to do. Our time will come when we will be raised with him on the Mount forever.

1Corinthians 10:11 tells us that temptation is common to man and that we are all prone to it. But when we walk with Christ and remain in him, there is a way out. Verse 13 tells us he (God) will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear."

Jesus was tempted by Satan to exchange his earthly calling for the riches of the world. How could the King of heaven possibly contemplate such things? The very heavens belong to him. How could Satan think that such a great exchange was possible? Having overcome the temptation of Satan, Jesus tells us that He is with us when we are tempted. In a sense, when we are called to God’s purposes, we too must suffer the voice of the tempter, but not be overcome by it.

Are you being tempted to give up the trial you have for some corporeal reward?

There have been TV shows that play upon temptations, bringing human morality into play. What would you do for £1 million? Dilemmas are presented to contestants with the aim of eliminating the competition. The scenarios have been constructed to create deception, and the outcomes are real. Friendship and trust are part of the test. Temptation seeks to provide immediate gratification and an absence from the repercussions. Have you ever considered the repercussions if Jesus had succumbed to Satan's temptation? Because Jesus did not, we can have confidence that we too can overcome the weaknesses of the flesh. But we must realise that to be an overcomer, we must engage in a fight. Overcoming weakness and temptation is not just a simple wish. We have to engage in a fight; we are fighting to stay in the race — we are fighting to pursue a goal that Satan does not want us to score. We must realise that the goal that Jesus asks of us and strengthens us to attain is only found on the narrow path; it is called the highway of holiness, and it is a path that Satan knows he can never set foot on. We must remember that we are called to be separate and to come out from the world. We do not belong here. What does belong here? The part of us that belongs here is our fleshly bodies because they were formed from the substance of the Earth. But a time is coming when God will come and burn up the Earth with fire, and a new heaven and a new earth will take their place.

When we are confronted with temptation, if we look to Christ, the temptation will go. If we look at temptation, Christ will go. Our lesson is to want him more than anything in the world. Nothing is worth more than Christ. To get to the place where we cannot be enticed by the lusts of the flesh, we must be assured that we do not have a pop-in or pop-out relationship with Jesus. He must be ever-present in our lives. He must be the heart within us. If our heart is taken out of us, we die, and that's exactly what happens when we take Jesus out of us.

Jesus, though he was tempted in many ways, was without sin. ‘Though I am tempted in many ways let me not fall into sin,’ the believer prays. Jesus, in response, will not allow us to fall into such evil, but shall deliver us from the snare. You might ask why I am tempted at all if Jesus lives in me? The soul is tempted because your soul is not Jesus' it's yours. The flesh must yield to a higher power or its own – we must never give in to our lustful desire, what is lust? It is the need to have something that is not yours. That's the temptation Satan provides. Satan does not truly make us sin. He provides the temptation, it is we who fall.  The serpent is cunning and is trying to replicate the fall in each of us.  Christ in us and the changing work of the Holy Spirit, allows us to remain resolved — walking the path of repentance, keeping our eyes on Jesus, not on the riches of the world. Have you ever considered the story of Job in connection with Adam and Eve? All of them, having an abundant life, lose it, though for different reasons. Life in the garden and walking with God provided an idyllic world. The couple wanted for nothing, and God in his wisdom, provided for them, but their response to the serpent’s temptation brought about their fall from glory. I don't want to get into the argument of why God allowed Satan to be in the garden in the first place, but we must understand that there are higher and wiser things than we cannot comprehend. Adam and Eve's response to the serpent's temptation brought about their fall from glory. Job, on the other hand, was surrounded by enormous wealth and saw his world fall apart when ‘a satan’ sent by God came to test him. What was being tested? It was Job's faith. Job never gave in to temptation despite the trials of his life. God blessed him because he learned that, despite the good and the bad, God had to receive the glory. The outcome for Job was to see his life turn around. He had every excuse to turn away from God, but he was resolved in his heart because he knew that God was to be trusted. Despite Job’s trials, God would walk with him through his faith in everything. Times are coming upon the Earth when people will turn away from God for the slightest disagreement or disgruntlement. They will accept the lies because the truth is not in them. We must be in a state of constant preparedness as Paul writes, to persevere and endure trial even unto death. Are we truly resolved to go that far? Friends, we have to realise that God does not change his way for us. It is we who have to change our ways to his. Our world is full of people who have lost faith and are slowly turning away from God. Some think that if I just hang onto my Christian faith long enough, it will be enough. Maintaining some form of religious mode might seem acceptable, but soon the passion for Christ wanes, and it runs cold. God notices when our attention is drawn away from Him; when we look to ourselves and give the glory to men. Have you noticed how social groups, on the platforms of the Internet, encourage the gathering of followers? and how looking at the social influences has become an occupation.

A believer desires to be a disciple of Christ. He is more than a follower. Jesus never said that the role would be easy. If we are to be imitators of Christ, then we must be aware that being a disciple of Christ means we must be broken. We must refrain from doing all that we can to avoid falling into temptation and the wickedness of denying Christ. One who has been truly converted has already died because they are born again. It is worth a moment just to contemplate that. If I am to be born again, that means that I must die and become a resurrected being. The story of Lazarus tells us that he had to be truly dead in order to be resurrected. You could say that Lazarus was born again. Not much is said about his life, but we know that the resurrection he received must have had a phenomenal effect not only on him but on those around. If Lazarus were alive today, he would be receiving much attention from the crowds in many a gathering.  Therefore, being born again into a new Spirit-filled life means that we have undertaken the exchange.

What is Good and Evil?

Is the concept of good and evil lost in translation?i

The Hebrew language defines good and evil as something that is either functional or dysfunctional.

Genesis 1:2 “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2)

The Hebrew uses the words 'Tohu va-Vohu' to describe this formless place. We see the components in place for the creation but they have to come together to make form and become purposeful.These new forms fill the universe and provide function for the living things that will inhabit the earth, from every creature of the air, water and earth bound to man, himslef. When we see that some of those elements like water and air become toxic for us, we can decalre that they are no longer fit for human consumption becasue they have become corrupted. When man becomes corrupt he goes against the purpose of his design and against God's laws, thus he becomes lawless; he no longer conforms, fundamentlaly, to the reason for which he was made.

When God made us, he made us to be functional in a dysfunctional world. However, when we succumb to temptation we become as the world – dysfunctional.

Our dysfunction makes us non-compliant to the word of God. The temptation to be non-compliant is therefore evil and is defined as being foolish or unwise.

If we choose the broad road we are destined for destruction. That is the outcome and the repercussion of the evil inclination. The wages of sin are death. But in Christ we have life. The wages of one who is purchased by His blood and serves Him as the master have life eternal. Living for Christ means that you are not living for yourself. If we are to be functional in this world, then we must be willing to be moved out of the way for the purposes of God.

Friends, in order for Lazarus to become functional in his new life, his burial threads had to be taken off him: he had to be unravelled — he had to become undone. Do you feel like that sometimes?

When the priests served in the temple, they had to be washed and changed from the routine of the sacrifices. If we are called to present ourselves as living sacrifices to God, then it seems natural, to me at least, that we too have to be cleaned up. That then becomes part of our functioning duty.

Following the healing of the lame man in Acts 3, Peter continues to recount the exchange of Jesus for the freedom of a criminal

Act 3: 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus. You handed Him over and rejected Him before Pilate, even though he had decided to release Him. 14 You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the Author of life, but God raised Him from the dead, and we are witnesses of this fact.

In the last days, many will turn away from the truth and deny Jesus to follow false teachers. We have to be prepared for this. That is why it is crucially important to continue to audit ourselves and live a repentant life.

Peter goes on…17 And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. 18 But in this way God has fulfilled what He foretold through all the prophets, saying that His Christ would suffer. 19 Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus, the Christ, who has been appointed for you.

Being born again means that we have been given the power to turn away from Satan's words of enticement. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil becomes the tool that God uses to awaken us to the wretchedness of our lives. It allows us to be undone, stripped of the skin of the glory of our own making. We don't need to eat from the forbidden fruit because we have its taste and piece in our throats. Confessing Jesus from the heart and with the mouth expels the rotten fruit.

The forbidden fruit is attractive to us because it is bittersweet. Something that is too sweet or bitter to the palate makes us shudder, but the taste of bitter sweetness wants to make us eat more.

Being born again makes us want different food. Jesus stands before us as the broken bread and the crushed grape and invites us to eat of him. He tells us to follow him, walk in his way. He did not say to sit down and be still. Following Christ means that we have to keep moving. What matters is not how long we’ve been born again. What does matter is whether we have been motivated in service to Christ.

Can you put your finger on a single moment in your life when something changed you so profoundly that it wrecked you? I don't mean a tragedy or some kind of sickness, but a time when the very insides of your soul were dislodged.

God uses the unexpected to bring about change. I know receiving Jesus changed my life; it changed my focus, my desires, and even changed my marriage. Perhaps you have experienced something similar. Knowing Jesus has changed me as a man and has come at some cost, and still there is much more to pay. Although I would like to feel that all my church and ministry busyness will count for something, I'm still wondering if I've been of service to Christ and whether he is pleased with me.

The notion of Christianity and a religious life can hoodwink us into believing that we have been of service to God. However, should we worry? Isn't it all down to God's work in us?

We should worry, however, if we are not in the business of multiplication. Every disciple must have an urge to multiply like the grain and the grape. In order for them both to reproduce, their seeds need to die; in order for them to become bread and wine, they need to be pressed, and this is the continual journey of a life in service to Christ. Being pressed along the way changes us so that we no longer have any resemblance to the old man. What we do now with the new life is part of the functioning process. If we are functioning as we should, then God will see that what he has created is good.