Tag Archives: temptation

A WALK THROUGH THE LORD’S PRAYER – 7

Prayer, ,

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. ’”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Why is it that the devil draws so much attention when it comes to the issue of temptation and sin?  The translation of Scripture from its original languages is a case in point. When we examine the meaning of the Greek word, “poneros”, translated, “the evil one” in the above verse, we will discover something different from the meaning the translators implied in the translation. 

As we have learned from our studies in the Word, many of the original words get their meaning from the context. In this verse, “poneros”, often translated “the evil one”, can have a variety of meanings.  However, to be true to the whole scope of Scripture, in this verse the devil is not named or even implied because most often when “the devil” is intended, he is named. 

The tendency in our thinking is to blame the devil for the bad things  we think and do rather than to take responsibility for our own behaviour because we have been given the freedom to choose. James tells us…

“When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭13‬-‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

In verse 13, James uses the word “kakos” for evil which refers more to character than action. God never tempts us to evil actions because He is not “kakos”. 

In Jesus’ prayer, “poneros” implies the results of our actions which stem from our corrupt “kakos”, our evil nature, including the pain and anguish, not stated here, which are the results of our evil behaviour. 

How different is the implication of Jesus’ prayer from our inclination to shrug off responsibility for what we say and do by palming our “poneros” onto the devil! 

When we work through the epistles in the New Testament, we can never escape the truth that our problem is not the devil but our own fallen nature.  For example, in Romans 8, Paul explains, first, how through God’s grace in Christ, we have been delivered from sin and death. We have a new nature which must be nurtured and obeyed. Then he continues, through the whole chapter, to teach us that there is a mortal conflict between our new and old natures. We are responsible for the outcome of this war. By putting to death the deeds of our old nature and by submitting to and obeying the Holy Spirit who is in us, we can overcome the “poneros” that remains in us. 

God is at work through all our circumstances, good and bad, to restore the nature of His Son in us. The Holy Spirit both reassures us that we are God’s children and helps us, in our weakness, to partner with God in prayer according to His will. 

Yes, we have a treacherous old nature that is always seeking to please self above God. Yes, the struggle is a life-and-death issue in which the devil plays his part. He eggs us on to independence and disobedience but…we have a powerful Helper inside us who gives us the strength to obey the Father instead of the flesh when we lean on Him. 

So, Jesus instructs us to ask the Father not to test us above our limits and to keep us from straying into the evil things that stem from our corrupt natures. He promises, as Paul assures us…

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭10‬:‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Let us not be deceived into thinking that we are helpless pawns in the devil’s hands. He is a defeated foe. Jesus unmasked and overpowered Him at the cross. He tries to keep us captive by holding us responsible for breaking God’s law. However…

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

‭‭Colossians‬ ‭2‬:‭13‬-‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭1‬-‭4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

THE GOSPEL IN HEBREWS – 22

Bible Study, ,

Before we continue to the conclusion of this letter, we must ask, in what way is Jesus the model we are to follow? Since it was the issue of suffering that tempted the readers to return to Judaism, we must examine the nature of the suffering that tempted them to give up and go back.

We will find, in the life of Jesus, what His greatest test was in the course of His life on earth. The readers of this letter faced the same test above all other temptations, not to sin as in giving in to fleshly lusts but to sin by turning their backs on Jesus, their only hope of salvation.

Jesus suffered in two ways, according to Scripture. First, He was rejected by His own people.

Isaiah 53:3 NIV
[3] “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”

John 1:10-11 NIV
[10] “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. [11] He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”

The Hebrew word for rejection, “chadal”, comes from the root meaning “vacant”. To call and treat someone as vacant is the worst form of insult. This attitude calls in question the very essence of who that person is, a human created in God’s image. In this case, mere humans were treating Jesus, the Son of God, as vacant, empty, and utterly worthless. Everything humans did to Jesus was the fruit of that rejection.

Jesus came to earth to redeem sinful humanity from slavery to the very choices and behaviour that caused their enslavement. To do this, He had to allow Himself to be sacrificed for us. He had to subject Himself to being treated as “vacant”, to give Himself for the very people who dismissed Him and His mission with contempt.

So, the second part of His suffering was temptation. In what way was Jesus tempted?

Since the issue, for the readers of this letter, was giving up, was the greatest temptation Jesus ever suffered, in the face of rejection, the temptation to give up, to abort His mission and return to the Father empty-handed?

At the start and at the finish of His public ministry, Jesus was under severe pressure to give up on His Father’s will for Him…which was to go to the cross. In the wilderness, the devil tried to get Him to break the unity between Father and Son by acting on His own. Jesus resolutely stood His ground by putting Himself under the authority of the Father and His Word.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, faced with the horror of His impending death, again Jesus was under pressure to give up. His own people’s rejection would inflict on Him the worst that humans could do to another human, let alone to their own God. The struggle was so intense that perspiration poured from Him like blood from a mortal wound.

Luke 22:44 NIV
[44] “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was LIKE drops of blood falling to the ground.”

How did Jesus react to this pressure? What did He do with the temptation to take the easy way out?

1 Peter 2:23 NIV
[23] “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”

Hebrews 2:17-18 NIV
[17] “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. [18] Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

Jesus’ experience was suffering of the worst kind. Insulted by His own people, knowing that He would be flayed to within an inch of His life, tortured, and crucified, He had to choose…to give up or to go on?

What was Satan’s motive behind the temptation to give up?

There was one overriding consideration, one thing Jesus would never betray…the love that bound Him and the Father together. To His enemies, He testified…repeatedly,

John 14:30-31 NIV
[30] “I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, [31] but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.”

Satan was desperate to get Jesus to break with the Father. If He could get Jesus to act alone, He would win the greatest victory of all…destroy the unity in the Trinity! His aim? To replace Jesus as king!

Jesus refused to give up. His love for the Father despite His suffering would be the very testimony to the world that He had overcome the devil! Love was the superglue that held Him to the Father’s will. Nothing, not even the worst that man could do to Him, could break that bond.

And so, for us the test is…how strong is the love that binds us to Jesus? The way we handle this test will determine the reality of our love.

1 John 4:10, 19 NIV
[10] “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…
[19] We love because he first loved us.”

Peter failed in the moment of his testing.

This “good news” is about the power of real love, the power of God’s love for the world that gave His Son, in the first place, to die despite what the world did to Him. The power of Jesus’ love for the Father kept Him steadfast to the end…and for us, God’s love for us and our response of love for Jesus is the same superglue that holds us to Him as it held Father and Son together.

John 17:23 NLT
[23] “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.”

Love and unity…the key to perseverance that guarantees our victory.

The Holy Spirit in us is the guarantee that love for Jesus will keep us glued to Him no matter how badly we are treated because of Him and how much we are tempted to abandon our loyalty to Him to save our skin.

Romans 5:3-5 NLT
[3] “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. [4] And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. [5] And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”

This is the pattern, the model we are to follow.

Hebrews 12:1-2 NLT
[1] “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. [2] We do this by KEEPING OUR EYES ON JESUS, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.”

Those who went before us clung to the hope of reaching God’s heavenly city. They refused to give up despite their suffering.
We, too, have that city in view, a celestial city that will be our eternal dwelling place with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, if we don’t give up.

To be continued…

FREEDOM – THE DECEPTION

Christian Life, ,

FREEDOM – THE DECEPTION

False religious systems abound but, for most believers in Jesus, false religions are not a trap to us.

However, the god of this world system, the devil, has pulled off two scams, and we, God’s children, are in danger of falling for either of them.

The first scam, called lawlessness, was already at work in the church in Paul’s day.

Our bodies play a very big part in the bondage we still struggle with in our desire and quest to experience real freedom. Our bodies continue to crave satisfaction from one desire or another.

“And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.”

James 1:13-15 NLT

Two false teachings come from this truth that much of our sin, conceived in our minds through our desires, is done in our bodies. First, some teach that, since our bodies are going to die anyway, what we do with our bodies doesn’t matter.

This idea cuts right across the teaching of Scripture.

“Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So, you must honour God with your body.”

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NLT

Through His death, Jesus has redeemed all of us, body, soul, and spirit. Our bodies are now God’s temple in which He lives by His Spirit. So, it is God’s intention for our bodies to confirm to His will as much as our hearts.

“Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.”

1 Thessalonians 5:23 NLT

Paul calls on every believer to give his/her body to God to serve His purposes.

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.”

Romans 12:1 NLT

The second part of this error is equally ridiculous. Some, in Paul’s day, believed that the more they sinned, the more God would be glorified because of His grace.

“Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?… We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.”

Romans 6:1-2, 6-7 NLT

The whole idea contradicts the very purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

“Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.”

Romans 6:3-4 NLT

Our new lives, in God’s kingdom in the protective boundaries of His Word contained in the New Covenant, are lived in this sinful, corrupted world.

God’s intention is to enable us by His grace to overcome temptation by trusting in Him. Our faith is precious to God. He must test us to ensure that we live by faith in His power at work in us.

This leads me to explain the second, opposite error, which we call “legalism”. Many of God’s so-called children still teach and trust in their own self-effort to make themselves holy. They try to apply some of the laws and practices of the Old Covenant to find acceptance with God.

Christians, for example, celebrate some of the feasts of the Old Covenant, not understanding that Jesus has or will fulfil all of them when He returns. Others try to obey food laws and taboos, or keep certain days “holy” e.g., the Sabbath. Some try to copy prayer rituals described in the Old Testament narrative as a means of gaining victory over the devil.

Believers still confuse the prescriptions of the Old Covenant and God’s mercy and grace in the New Covenant.

The Old Covenant had the specific purpose of teaching God’s people that He is holy and unapproachable because of sin, and the impossibility of satisfying His just requirements by keeping rules. The requirement for acceptance with God was, “Do this and you will live.”

“The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So, God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.”

Romans 8:3-4 NLT

The New Covenant explicitly reveals God’s complete solution to our sin and all its consequences by sending Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin. Jesus’ death and resurrection has dealt with all our sin, past, present, and future, and its consequences. The operative word is, “Done!”

“God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.”

Romans 5:8-10 NLT

When we trespass into the area of obeying rules to become righteous, we cancel the death of Jesus to forgive our sin, declare us righteous, and make us perfectly acceptable to the Father. We nullify the New Covenant, and we are no longer eligible for God’s mercy and grace.

Paul’s earnest counsel is,

“So, Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law. Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”

Galatians 5:1-4 NLT

DRUGGED BY GRIEF

Christian Life, ,

DRUGGED BY GRIEF

“He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief. He said, ‘What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray that you won’t give in to temptation.'” Luke 22:45-46 (The Message).

Even in the midst of His own ordeal, Jesus was teaching His disciples (and us) a powerful life lesson. The words “drugged by grief” in this paraphrase capture the truth He both modelled and communicated to His disciples.

The disciples were in the grip of a “drug” that paralysed their will and robbed them of their ability to know what to do in this predicament. Instead of preparing for the unknown by submitting themselves to the Father and receiving His strength to resist the devil (James 4:7), they copped out by sleeping.

Unlike them, Jesus used the situation to prepare Himself so that, when the temple guards swooped down on Him, He was not taken unawares. He was equipped, through His “reverent submission” (Hebrews 5:8), to accept the entire cross event without resistance or retaliation according to His Father’s will.

Emotions are a powerful and truthful gauge of the thoughts and interpretations of our life experiences. As we have followed Jesus through the Gospel of Luke, we have recognised that His perspective was always God-centred. Time and again He had to correct His disciples’ misunderstanding of their experiences by bringing them back to a God-awareness which gave them a proper understanding of what was happening.

Because they had filtered out of their minds Jesus’ warning that He was going to be arrested and crucified, but that He would rise again, the disciples were caught up in paralysing sorrow. The only way they could handle it was to sleep it off, perhaps hoping that, when they woke up, it would have only been a nightmare!

If we grasp this principle, it will save us from unnecessary emotional pain and enable us to live in the inner rest that kept Jesus from falling apart in His time of severe testing. Jesus is our supreme example but there are others in Scripture who exhibited the same attitude to their suffering and came out on top.

Joseph stands out as an Old Testament character who recognised God’s hand in his circumstances, refused to become bitter, gave excellent service to his master despite his suffering and emerged a winner because he trusted God instead of collapsing into self-pity. Likewise, Daniel centred on God and served Him in Babylon, probably the worst pagan environment of his day. No threats or manipulation could move him from his purpose to obey God, no matter what.

Our emotions are the clue to what we are thinking. If we view our situation as hopeless, we feel despair. We become depressed and our depression becomes the drug that paralyses our desire and ability to do live normal lives. Depressed people are so self-absorbed that they shut out the world and retreat into a prison of hopelessness which is the perfect environment for the devil to sow his seeds of self-destruction.

What is the antidote to emotional “drug abuse”? Jesus said, “Pray!” What must we pray? The Apostle Paul gives us the answer in Philippians 4:6-7. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, wiil guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

The key is not that you pray but what you pray. In this instance to “present” implies to reveal – come clean with God about what is really in your heart – anxiety and all its accompanying emotions. Expose them and give them to God, and He will replace them with peace that does not make sense to anyone else but you.

Had the disciples done that, they would have been released from their emotional drugs and in their right minds to face their situation and not give way to fear. God steps in with the grace to go through when we expose to Him what is really going on inside.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – DRUGGED BY GRIEF

Bible Study, ,

DRUGGED BY GRIEF

“He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief. He said, ‘What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray that you won’t give in to temptation.'” Luke 22:45-46.

Even in the midst of His own ordeal, Jesus was teaching His disciples (and us) a powerful life lesson. The words “drugged by grief” in this paraphrase capture the truth He both modelled and communicated to His disciples.

The disciples were in the grip of a “drug” that paralysed their will and robbed them of their ability to know what to do in this predicament. Instead of preparing for the unknown by submitting themselves to the Father and receiving His strength to resist the devil (James 4:7), they copped out by sleeping.

Unlike them, Jesus used the situation to prepare Himself so that, when the temple guards swooped down on Him, He was not taken unawares. He was equipped, through His “reverent submission” (Hebrews 5:8), to accept the entire cross event without resistance or retaliation according to His Father’s will.

Emotions are a powerful and truthful gauge of the thoughts and interpretations of our life experiences. As we have followed Jesus through the Gospel of Luke, we have recognised that His perspective was always God-centred. Time and again He had to correct His disciples’ misunderstanding of their experiences by bringing them back to a God-awareness which gave them a proper understanding of what was happening.

Because they had filtered out of their minds Jesus’ warning that He was going to be arrested and crucified, but that He would rise again, the disciples were caught up in paralysing sorrow. The only way they could handle it was to sleep it off, perhaps hoping that, when they woke up, it would have only been a nightmare!

If we grasp this principle of maintaining our God-awareness , it will save us from unnecessary emotional pain and enable us to live in the inner rest that kept Jesus from falling apart in His time of severe testing. Jesus is our supreme example but there are others in Scripture who exhibited the same attitude to their suffering and came out on top.

Joseph stands out as an Old Testament character that recognised God’s hand in his circumstances, refused to become bitter, gave excellent service to his master in spite of his suffering and emerged a winner because he trusted God instead of collapsing into self-pity. Likewise Daniel centred on God and served Him in Babylon, probably the worst pagan environment of his day. No threats or manipulation could move him from his purpose to obey God, no matter what.

Our emotions are the clue to what we are thinking. If we view our situation as hopeless, we feel despair. We become depressed and our depression becomes the drug that paralyses our desire and ability to live normal lives. Depressed people are so self-absorbed that they shut out the world and retreat into a prison of hopelessness which is the perfect environment for the devil to sow his seeds of self-destruction.

What is the antidote to emotional “drug abuse”? Jesus said, “Pray!” What must we pray? The Apostle Paul gives us the answer in Philippians 4:6-7. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

The key is not that you pray but what you pray. In this instance to “present” implies to reveal – come clean with God about what is really in your heart – anxiety and all its accompanying emotions. Expose them and give them to God, and He will replace them with peace that does not make sense to anyone else but you.

Had the disciples done that, they would have been released from their emotional drugs and in their right minds to face their situation and not give way to fear. God steps in with the grace to go through when we expose to Him what is really going on inside.