"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:
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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1 comments:
I was in Virginia 2 weeks ago and I heard a man say: "I'm a Christian. I stopped sinning." Firt of all - I hate the mans claim that he is perfect, only One is perfect and that's Jesus - therefore, that man (possibly without knowing) is claiming to be Jesus.
I think as followers of Jesus - the Enemy feels more threatened by us - but yet he still knows our weaknesses and our rough edges. I think he feels threatened by us because he knows that the One we follow is more powerful then he is, and yet we fall into sin because we are sinful, and even though we follow Jesus we are still tempted, still human and made of flesh and blood... and still able to fall.
I'm not sure if this went with your post at all - but I wrote it anyhow.
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