2012-12-28
Hi There Dear Ones,
From what I was led to write in the last couple of weeks, we know that study of God’s word and prayer are important tools in preparing us for the times when we are tempted. It’s important to know that His knowledge is here for us at all times. Moreover, God really cares about us and has told us, in 1 PET 5: 6-7, Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” Having said that, He gives us this important warning in 1 PET 5: 8-9, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering.” The half-brother of Christ, James, who I like to call the “parent-apostle” because of his pronouncements of wisdom, tells us in JAS 4: 7, “Submit yourselves, then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Whenever something is repeated like this in the Scriptures, we should know that God deems it important.
Since we know that the Lord Jesus endured all the same temptations that we have, and He is One with God, we can know that God understands and relates to all our trials too. This realization should lead us to thank and praise to God. PR 3: 5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” This kind of knowledge is life-saving reconnaissance. It follows that we must be willing to submit to God’s supreme wisdom, and thus, we should obey God’s words, in IS 33: 13, “You who are far away, hear what I have done; you who are near, acknowledge My power!” We can pray PS 31: 4-5, “Free me from the trap that is set for me, for You are my Refuge. Into Your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O Lord, the God of truth.”
Not only should we submit to God, but we should be keenly aware of His sovereignty. PS 76: 1-3, “In Judah, God is known; His name is great in Israel. His tent is in Salem [archaic name for Jerusalem], His dwelling place in Zion. There He broke the flashing arrows, the shields and the swords, the weapons of war.” God loves for us to rehearse His history, because it lets Him know that we really do appreciate His power and sovereignty. God asks a pressing and important question, in JER 18: 6, “’O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?’ declares the Lord. ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.’” Having said all of this, we know that we have a Covenant Partner to Whom we can call when we are in need of help. God is reliable, compassionate, caring, and a capable Savior for those who love and honor Him.
PS 46: 1, “God is our Refuge and Strength, an ever-present Help in time of trouble.” We can pray PS 71: 2, 12-13, “Rescue me and deliver in Your righteousness; turn Your ear to me and save me…Be not far from me, O God; come quickly, O my God, to help me. May my accusers perish in shame; may those who want to harm me be covered with scorn and disgrace. ” And to it, we can add PS 86: 6-7, “Hear my prayer, O Lord; listen to my cry for mercy. In the day of my trouble I will call to You, for You will answer me.” God understands our trials, as He understood the trials of the ancient Jews enslaved in Egypt. EX 2: 23-25, “During that long period, the pharaoh of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help, because of their slavery, went up to God. God heard their groaning and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” His heart is revealed in PS 31: 7, “I will be glad and rejoice in Your love, for You saw my affliction.” We learned here that PS 33: 13 is true, “The Lord looks down from heaven and sees every person.”
Our God works through the Holy Spirit. ZECH 4: 6, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel; ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” [Zerubbabel is from the royal line of David and is the governor in post-exilic Israel at the same time that Jeshua –also known as Joshua, but not to be confused with Joshua, son of Nun-was the high priest ~520-516 BC].
PRAYER: O Lord, all of what You led us through today is still not all that we can do and understand in the face of temptation. We must remember that as our Covenant Partner, You love us with a true and profound intensity that no human can imitate completely. While our spouses come close at times, even they can’t love us as You do. You have given us enough of the weapons we can use against the evil one, weapons which will be effective even more than guns, knives, bombs, or spears, that when we face the devil in Christ’s name and obeying Your directives, he can never win! 2 COR 10: 3-5, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretention that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient.” The devil only wins in spiritual warfare, of which temptation is one element, if we let him. There is a reason that worship of You will be our chief career in heaven. It is because we can’t count the number of times and ways we should offer You honor, glory, thanks, and praise. PS 9: 1-2, “I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing the praises of Your name, O Most High.” Your Son, Jesus, understood He would eventually send the devil on his way when He was tempted for 40 days and nights in the wilderness [MT 4: 1-11]. He knows Your power and Your sovereignty and uses that knowledge whenever it is called for. The devil is angry and in a hurry to do evil, because he knows his time is limited by God’s righteous power. That is why he was unable to convince Job that the latter should give up on God, and that God was giving Job the willpower to stay firm in his faith in God, despite all the trails he went through [JOB 1: 12; JOB 42: 10]. Our God forgives our genuinely confessed sins and rewards those who endure in faith. He has given us Christ as a Mediator [HE 9: 15], and Christ has give His life on the cross to make our salvation possible through faith in Him [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25]. It is logical and right that we should reverently and humbly offer God our praise and thanks forever. In Christ’s mighty/holy name, we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: As the Holy Spirit closes out this “When We’re Tempted” segment of the “Our Covenant” messages, we are reminded that God doesn’t condemn those who obey Him, but instead preserves and rewards them. Moreover, He teaches us the discipline of daily study and prayer to prepare is for whatever comes to ahead to us.
After that, we will begin a new segment called “God, My Strong Tower.” God’s power is not only one of His attributes, but it is always used with righteousness. PS 77: 11-15 allows us to see how we can apply this wonderful truth to our lives. “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your miracles of long ago. I will meditated on all Your works and consider all Your mighty deeds. Your ways, O God, are holy . What god is so great as our God? You are the God Who performs miracles; You display Your power among the peoples. With Your mighty arm You redeemed Your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.” What a great blessing these truths are! The Psalmist pleases God by rehearsing history with Him. Then He reiterates the holiness of God’s methods and goes on to recall what some of His blessings to mankind are. Lastly, this writer is letting God know the connection between what He did in the past and what He is doing now and in the future. These are ways we can acknowledge our God and please Him. In the meanwhile, our God can be counted on to continue to bless those who love and worship Him, because He is a Promise-keeper [PS 138: 8]. Praise and thanks be to Him forever!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24:15
© Lynn Johnson, 2012. All Rights Reserved.
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