Temptations.

One more week until this quarter ends, and it's amazing how fast the last few months flown by. Much of it is a blur now, but I'm grateful for how faithful God has been. Many ups and downs, but in the end, I know that it is God that is refining and chipping away (painfully) my heart. If I could pinpoint one spiritual struggle, it would have to be the fight of the mind. Over and over, I catch myself thinking things that are not Biblical. It's degrading, it's self-pity, it's self-honor, it's self-control, it's down right doubting God's ability in my life. The only way to fight is with the weapons of prayer and the Word of God...  and God and His funny ways, not just once but twice, the sermon based on the temptation of Jesus was preached. To both remind me and equip me mentally, here are my notes from the one of the sermons a few weeks ago based on Matthew 4:1-11,


LIE 1: Feed yourself
The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 

Satan's way: Feed yourself and quench your own desires your own way. 

God's way: Hunger and thirst for the Word of God and righteousness. 

We believe that we have put things in our own hands. God is our provider to show that He is the Father. We run to the Word of God, because that is our life, it is the Word of God that quenches all thirst and hunger. He wants us to remember that He is faithful to the end, and that we can't feed ourselves, we need and depend on Him. 

LIE 2: Prove yourself

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
   “‘He will command his angels concerning you,
   and they will lift you up in their hands,
   so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[c]”
Satan's way: Your ultimate goal is to prove yourself to yourself, to others and to God.
God's way: We are liberated from proving ourselves to anyone.

God does not need to prove himself nor does He need our approval; Christ was not sent to prove himself to us, rather he came to die for us--throwing Himself on the cross for us. Because of this, we are liberated from saving our face and proving our worthiness, so that we can love others when you don't need to be love, so that we can risk our lives embracing others when none will be returned.

LIE 3: Exalt yourself
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Satan's way: Worship Satan, worship yourself. Build your own kingdom and adopt God into it.
God's way: Worship Jesus Christ, He is the True King, the one who leads humbly and adopted us as coheirs.

Worship means worth. Is God worthy of our time? Our lives? We so often grasp for our own kingdom and make God our little puppet. Just as Satan tries to gives the Kingdom away as if it was his to give, we do the same, we accept and exclude certain people in the Kingdom as if it is ours. We forget that it is God's Kingdom and Jesus Christ rules over it. More than that, God adopted us in His family, in His kingdom, not just to be His children, but coheirs in Christ. We so often try to exalt ourselves in this lifetime, when in the end, it means absolutely nothing...

... so is our goal to make God our servant or to be God's servant? 
....are we trying to magnify ourselves or crucify ourselves? 

The hope in Christ gives power to fight the mind.