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Temptation

  • March 11, 2015
  • Posted by: LSEM
  • Category: Devotions
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Temptation 

Mark 1:12-13 – The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.

The lesson from the gospel of Mark is the familiar story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. The book of Mark leaves out many details which Luke and Matthew have in their gospels. Let’s look at a key concept of this scripture, Jesus was tempted.

WOW! The idea that Jesus was tempted!

“To tempt” means to try and convince someone to do something. In this case with Jesus’ temptation, do you think God was wanting to see if Jesus would do what was required of him? Maybe this is God’s purpose in times of testing but at the same time, we know that Satan had his own purpose, his own agenda – to turn Jesus away from God. He does the same to us today!

Let’s be truthful, we Christians know inside what is right. We even know that the right thing is the best thing for us. And God coaches us from the inside with His “buzzer”, the Holy Spirit, to help us resist temptation. But we often choose to ignore the buzzer and look for a way to shut it off. We ignore God’s signal and follow our own, even though experience shows us that we mess up everything when we do not listen to Him.

That is the way temptation works. It places things in our path meant to blind our eyes to the kind of life God wants us to live. How do we overcome temptation?  By the victory we already have in our Savior!  The assurance of forgiveness and eternal life, that rests with God and what He has done by sending His Son!  We will continue to fight temptation, we will continue have battles because he who has been defeated still tries to wrestle the victory from us. But thanks be to God, He who has won the victory will never leave us alone.

Just as Jesus used the sure Word of God to resist the devil, we also have that tremendous, powerful Word of God to use against any schemes of Satan and all of his earthly forces today. It says in verse 13, “and the angels ministered to him.” God sends His angels to protect us! We’re covered!

The Lenten season reminds us that Jesus bore our grief and carried our sorrows.  Even more, He carried our sins to the cross!  “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”   We praise Him who has already delivered us from the evil foe.   Amen!

A Devotion by Rev. Jeffrey P. Howell – Director, Programs and Services