Matthew 4

"Temptation come my way..."

4:1 - "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil".

A whole lot of the time Christians see temptation as something horribly bad. Jesus was tempted and we should know that there was nothing bad about Jesus. When we are tempted, that's Satan trying to get us to get away from what is right and Godly. Satan knows that we are close to God and he (satan) wants us to distance ourselves from Him. When we are tempted we need to be reminded that it's a sign that Satan has locked onto us and wants us to lose our way - sepereate ourselves from God. Not that Satan doesn't tempt those who are lost but he has really has no reason to for they are already lost. Followers of Christ walk around with a target on them for Satan to hone in and strike.

4:13 - "Leaving Nazareth, He (Jesus) went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali- to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

'Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,

the way to the sea, along the Jordan

Galilee of the Gentiles-

the people living in darkness

have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the

shadow of death

a light has dawned' ".

We have indeed seen a Great Light! And yet despite of seeing this brilliant light we still choose to live in the darkness, cover our eyes or stay in a twilight, semi-lit area. As Americans we think we live in a great country (which we do) that is deprived of the evil that resides outside our borders and takes up residence in far away countries. Yet death is around us every day. Not just physical death but spiritual death and death of morals, death of the family, death of what is Godly, death of the church as it should be. Death does not always have a single victim. Blood and death do not always go together. Sometimes death creeps in and escapes before we realize what is missing.

I pray that we understand that we serve a Master who has conquered death and without it's sting we should fear it no more. We have something more to fear, the God of the Universe whom we should be fearing and reverant to. We have been given light both spiritually and in a vinyl-leather bound book with thin, paper pages.

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Matthew 3

Matthew 3:1-2 "In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near'."

These versus are sweet. Two parts I find sweet in this passage.

1) John the Baptist (henceforth known as J the B) is "...preaching...". Yup, that's it. He's preaching. From what I know of J the B he was not very timid. A few versus down he calls the Sadducees and the Pharisees a "brood of vipers"! Talk about boldness! Today at the library some lady was talking to one of the librarian ladies about different things and she mentioned God and about how we sometimes have to create our own miracles. WHA?! But I listened. I coulda said something...but I chose not to because I didn't want to barge into their conversation (which the patron lady was dominating).

2) In the second part of the verse J the B says, "REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven is near". REPENT! Not as in, take your time...when you feel up to it or when you have time ask for forgivness. NO! As in, RIGHT NOW! Can you gaurantee me what will happen in an hour from now? How do you know that Christ won't be back? Or that you won't be killed some how? We don't need to be fretting and worrying all our lives about making sure we're 'clean'; repenting every second. But we need to make sure we repent before God and not hold sins in, just taking for granted that as a Christian we'll be ok. We owe it to God to humble ourselves before Him and ask for forgiveness.

Matthew 3:10 "The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire".

J the B says something here that should catch our attention (and I assume it caught everyone around's attention). The ax, our judgement, is right here beside us. It's not something that might or might not come. It is plain that we will most definitely be judged for what fruit we bear. Is what we produce in our lives glorifying to God? If not we best be worried and get to workin on a way to fix this problem.

If you know Christ as your savior - keep pressing on and work on growing closer to Him.
If you do now have a personal relationship with Christ (which IS possible!) please look into the facts and realize that Christ loves you; enough that He died for you!!

Ryan ><>