Thursday, November 20, 2014

Jesus in flesh faced the same temptations we face

Mat_4:8  Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them

The devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, but not just that, he showed them the glory of those kingdoms.  What do you imagine he showed to Jesus? What was the glory he believed would entice God in Flesh, the declared Son of God, the One he knew had a part in his own creation, the creation of the world he claimed as his?  We can't forget that satan knew Jesus in heaven, He knew him as his creator, he knew Him as God with God.  He knew Him in His spirit form. Satan also knew that when He brought sin into the new world created by Jesus, that God the Father and God who was to become the declared Son told Adam and Eve that an enmity would be put between Satan and mankind.

Gen_3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Satan knew that the One who could bruise his head- killing him- was before Him as God in the flesh. He KNEW the prediction that while he would hurt the One before him, the One before him would destroy him.  He needed to go by all He knew of God in the flesh, God now subject to temptation because He was flesh.  He knew of God's love for the world He'd created so he offered them back to Him.

Mat 4:9  And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

He was telling Jesus, God in the flesh, that He needn't be bruised at all, that He could have what He wanted, the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. 

Again, what did he show to Jesus, what was the glory that would entice God in the flesh to be tempted to give up His purpose for taking on that flesh?

What did Jesus die for?  You and I, right? But Satan was tempting Him with THINGS, with all the glories of the kingdom, all the things any human would find tempting and even Jesus would find tempting, but He would NOT yield His mind to the temptations before Him not even when they were everything He could want as a human being, yet lacked everything He wanted as God. He wanted the end to sin, an end to the thing that separated Him from His Human creations.

Mat_4:8  Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them

Jesus was shown everything the world had to offer any human being and He through His Father's power resisted the temptations that we face.  He felt the temptation it was REAL or else there wasn't a single point in satan tempting Him, not one. He knew the temptation, the force of the temptation, and none of us can ever say that our temptations are greater than His ever were.  Our temptations may be more complex because of our technology but they all have the same root causes every single one.

Are we choosing the world over Jesus because of the temptations we succumb to, the temptations we fight against?  Temptations are REAL, temptations are STRONG, temptations are going to come at us all the time with the SOLE objective to separate us from Jesus.

We choose- the world and all the glories of it, or Jesus.

By the grace of our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, may be choose JESUS. Please Father, keep us from EVIL, all in YOUR GRACE, YOUR LOVE.


Amen.

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