Gospel Reading (Audio) - Audio Sermon
And so Sunday afternoon rolled around and there was no more pie. So what should we do? After all, one occasional pie – our first pie since Christmas – is one thing, but we simply cannot eat a pie every week, or our doctor would find some new and expensive medicine to put us on. (Thankfully, we don’t yet need insulin or such. Our diet and exercise generally do a good enough job controlling our sugar issues.)
But if we went to a pie-of-the-week plan, we would have problems. Yet, after those few days with pie, our bodies were yelling at us on Sunday that we needed SUGAR! And it was very tempting to get the flour, the sugar, the fillings out and make another pie. But we resisted the temptation. Barely.
I’m sure you’ve been in a similar place. You may have a different set of temptations that we do, but each of us are tested differently. Your temptation may be sugar, it may be caffeine, it may be nicotine, it may be alcohol, it may be painkillers. You may be tempted by the adrenaline rush that comes when we give into our anger and shout down at our friend or relative, the temptation may be that handsome guy or pretty woman at work, the temptation may be lottery tickets or it may be pornography. Your temptation may be chocolate or it may be pizza. It may be the temptation to cheat on a test or to cheat on your taxes. It may be the money that you handle at work or it may be the chance to take a longer lunch hour than necessary. It may be that the word “Sale” pulls you off the highway and into your favorite store. Temptations are all around – and we fight against them all the time.
In a third and final test, the devil had Jesus climb to the highest point of the Temple and suggested that if Jesus was really the Son of God, He should simply jump, and then quotes the Old Testament to indicate that angels would swoop in and save Him. But Jesus tells Himself, the devil, and us that we should not test God.
This was a subtle test. Indeed, all of the tests were testing Jesus’ pride. Was He really who He knew He was – the Son of God? This test supposedly was to see if God really loved Jesus – would God send angels to catch Him as He fell? But Jesus’ response reminds us, the devil, and Jesus that God is in complete and total charge and those who have true faith, true trust in God, a true understanding of Who God is, do not need to test God to find out if God loves them, for God has said God loves us. God’s word is enough! Testing God is actually our way of saying, “God, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you love me.” It is an attempt at manipulation because we simply don’t know, understand, or believe God’s promises.
And isn’t that the same thing that often happens between people? We create these artificial tests, we manipulate to determine if we are loved by our spouse, our parents, our children, our church? We drive off into the night and don’t come home until late to see if they waited up, worried about us. We play silent and wait for them to call us. Or we injure ourselves so they will come meet us at the Emergency Room – IF they love us.
To me, one of the saddest games people play is with Facebook – they forward some variation of this game: “I know you don’t really love me or read my postings – if you love me and are my friend, respond with a single word.” Or the other, older variation – “I’ll skip church three weeks in a row in the middle of flu season and see who calls me.” What they often don’t realize is that they have missed church so often that missing three weeks is not really unusual. Especially when only half the church shows up any given week because of illness, bad weather, etc. True love does not mean jumping at any test; true love often means respecting a person enough to let them go, assuming that they are adults who know what they want and need, letting them try out other churches, other friends, other lives, for we certainly don’t want the people we love to be miserable if they are miserable hanging around us.
It is quite true that the older man or woman who is there every week, twice a week and misses will probably get a phone call after a single missed service – or at least after two missed Sundays. And that’s because we know they love us, too and that only something far beyond their control would keep them from church. And they show that love by showing up at church all the time.
We always forget what God has told us through the Apostle Paul in our Romans reading. Romans 10:8-13 Let me remind you...
"On the contrary, what does it say? “The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”
This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
Now the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes on Him will not be put to shame,” for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, since the same Lord of all is rich to all who call on Him. “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
So what is the problem? What test can’t you pass? Is Jesus Lord? Do you believe that God raised Him from the dead? You will be saved!
Beyond that point, everything that is left is learning how to swim in the eddies and currents of life’s river. For God has created out lives with eddies and currents, and the Way of Holiness that we learn from following Jesus is the way to swim in that life river without trouble. But just as a beginning swim coach might say, “there are only two things you need to know – move your hands and feet, and breath only air, not water “ there are only two basic things needed to be saved by God.
And so Sunday afternoon rolled around and there was no more pie. So what should we do? After all, one occasional pie – our first pie since Christmas – is one thing, but we simply cannot eat a pie every week, or our doctor would find some new and expensive medicine to put us on. (Thankfully, we don’t yet need insulin or such. Our diet and exercise generally do a good enough job controlling our sugar issues.)
But if we went to a pie-of-the-week plan, we would have problems. Yet, after those few days with pie, our bodies were yelling at us on Sunday that we needed SUGAR! And it was very tempting to get the flour, the sugar, the fillings out and make another pie. But we resisted the temptation. Barely.
I’m sure you’ve been in a similar place. You may have a different set of temptations that we do, but each of us are tested differently. Your temptation may be sugar, it may be caffeine, it may be nicotine, it may be alcohol, it may be painkillers. You may be tempted by the adrenaline rush that comes when we give into our anger and shout down at our friend or relative, the temptation may be that handsome guy or pretty woman at work, the temptation may be lottery tickets or it may be pornography. Your temptation may be chocolate or it may be pizza. It may be the temptation to cheat on a test or to cheat on your taxes. It may be the money that you handle at work or it may be the chance to take a longer lunch hour than necessary. It may be that the word “Sale” pulls you off the highway and into your favorite store. Temptations are all around – and we fight against them all the time.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13
In the Greek, the word peirazo means to be tested or, in a negative context, to be tempted. So you can think of a temptation as being a test, an opportunity to see if you can pass the test.
In our Gospel reading today, it was Jesus’ time to be tempted, to be tested.
So most of you know the story. Just after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist down on the Jordan River, Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit.
I know that there are days when I’m filled with the Holy Spirit and I’ve seen my wife Saundra and son Andy filled with the Holy Spirit when they preach or pray. It is something else!
The best way I can describe it is that we are filled with energy. Have you ever walked across a carpet on a cold winter day and when you get to the door, you touch the doorknob and ZAP! There is a spark that flies from your finger? It is something like that.
Have you ever laid off of all the coffee, all the cola, all the chocolate, all the energy drinks for two weeks? If you are like me, you drag around for most of the first week, but then you recover and you feel much better than you did when you needed coffee every morning just to get going. Now imagine that you’ve been off all the caffeine for two or three weeks and then at lunch, you drink four Starbucks's coffees, the dark roast, premium types, 16 ounces each! Can you imagine how you’d be filled with energy for the next few hours, if you didn’t have a heart attack first?
Years ago, we hired a high school girl to work for us to do filing in the evenings while other people took inbound phone calls. She was an athlete, a basketball player who was in shape, and home-schooled in a religious family, so she had lived a very clean life. Well, we kept this container of Sam’s cappuccino mix by the office coffee pot. You just put a tablespoon in the cup, add hot water, and it is instant sweet coffee, except double strength. The other workers told me the first night she tried this, she liked the cappuccino so much she had two cups back-to-back. They told me she was practically dancing on the tabletops that evening. That’s what it’s like to be filled with the Holy Spirit!
Now add to that the fact that Jesus was Jesus, the Son of God, and you can imagine that he was ready to burst with energy!
And Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted for forty days. Notice that it is the Holy Spirit who leads Jesus to be tempted – it is not the devil. So many times, when we come to a time of testing, we blame the test on the devil. We think logically, that if the devil is giving us a test, then we are supposed to fail the test - the devil isn’t going to let us pass, is he? But it isn’t the devil who puts us into the test, although the devil may get to participate in the test – It is the Holy Spirit – God the Spirit is who tests us, who sets us up for a good test.
Now why does God test us? God knows our abilities, God knows our capabilities, God knows our weaknesses. Why would God test us?
I mean, it’s like a good football coach having his players run the 40 yard dash and timing them in the break between the last regular season game and the bowl game. Do you think that coach doesn’t know what each player can do? Of course he knows by now what his players can do!
No, the reason the coach has them run the 40 yard dash and times them is so THEY will know what they can do – both themselves and their teammates. And that is why God give us tests – so we can know what we can do. And God gave Jesus his tests so that both the devil and us would know what Jesus could do!
So when you are being tested, understand these points. God has created the test for you because God wants you to pass the test, and God wants you to know that you can pass the test and God wants you to be able to tell other people that you can pass the test.
So there are three tests.
First, Jesus is tested by going hungry. After all, Jesus is God’s Son, with a divine nature, but Jesus is also a human man, with the nature of the body that screams – get me some bread!
And the devil gives Jesus a suggestion, just whispers in His ear. "Turn the rocks into bread and eat them." After all, Jesus is the Son of God. It would be a good proof, right?
But Jesus understands that to use His divine power in that way would be wrong, it would be unfair to every human, it would defeat His mission on earth if he gave into the hunger and turned rocks into bread. For part of what Jesus has to do is to show us that a human can last for forty days without food. He has to show not only Himself but also us and the devil that humans are a lot stronger than we usually think. So He simply tells the devil, Himself, and us that “Man does not live by bread alone.”
Bread is just stuff. Our mind is stronger than our body. We are not animals – our will can be strong enough to fast for forty days.
I have read of Liu Zhenying, known as Brother Yun, who developed many house churches in China during the 1980’s and 1990’s. He later wrote a book The Heavenly Man. One day he was arrested and put into prison. Chinese prisons are bad – a dozen or more men in a cell with no running water, no toilets. Brother Yun simply began to convert men in the prison. He was beaten for this. So he began a total fast – no food – and no water – which miraculously lasted 74 days, and led to the conversion of many more men. He then recovered and after many more months, the Holy Spirit spoke to him and told him to walk out the gate. So he walked through several unguarded, open doors, across the prison yard and out the main gate, it was as if he had become invisible. These stories have been confirmed by other former prisoners who occupied his cell. He eventually left China and lives in Germany, where he promotes the Chinese “Back to Jerusalem” movement that is beginning to send Chinese Christian missionaries to the lands between China and Israel – Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria.
The second temptation of Jesus is of power. The devil suggests that if Jesus will simply bow down before Satan, the devil will make Jesus his prince, ruling over the world under Satan. But Jesus tells the devil, Himself, and us that we are to worship and serve only God.
Power, you see, is fleeting. If you try to control people to make them do what you want, you will have some power until those you try to control squirm out from under you – and that will happen! Even the Soviet Union, even Hitler’s Germany could not control completely. Trying to control other people is like squeezing a balloon. When you get control of one area, another area pops out.
If you tell people they must buy tofu from the cafeterias, someone will smuggle in a hot dog. If you force people to buy from the monopoly telephone company, someone will invent cell phones. If you force people to buy cable TV, someone will invent a Netflix or a Dish Network. If you raise taxes on New York businesses, businesses will move to North Carolina or Florida.
In the Greek, the word peirazo means to be tested or, in a negative context, to be tempted. So you can think of a temptation as being a test, an opportunity to see if you can pass the test.
In our Gospel reading today, it was Jesus’ time to be tempted, to be tested.
So most of you know the story. Just after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist down on the Jordan River, Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit.
I know that there are days when I’m filled with the Holy Spirit and I’ve seen my wife Saundra and son Andy filled with the Holy Spirit when they preach or pray. It is something else!
The best way I can describe it is that we are filled with energy. Have you ever walked across a carpet on a cold winter day and when you get to the door, you touch the doorknob and ZAP! There is a spark that flies from your finger? It is something like that.
Have you ever laid off of all the coffee, all the cola, all the chocolate, all the energy drinks for two weeks? If you are like me, you drag around for most of the first week, but then you recover and you feel much better than you did when you needed coffee every morning just to get going. Now imagine that you’ve been off all the caffeine for two or three weeks and then at lunch, you drink four Starbucks's coffees, the dark roast, premium types, 16 ounces each! Can you imagine how you’d be filled with energy for the next few hours, if you didn’t have a heart attack first?
Years ago, we hired a high school girl to work for us to do filing in the evenings while other people took inbound phone calls. She was an athlete, a basketball player who was in shape, and home-schooled in a religious family, so she had lived a very clean life. Well, we kept this container of Sam’s cappuccino mix by the office coffee pot. You just put a tablespoon in the cup, add hot water, and it is instant sweet coffee, except double strength. The other workers told me the first night she tried this, she liked the cappuccino so much she had two cups back-to-back. They told me she was practically dancing on the tabletops that evening. That’s what it’s like to be filled with the Holy Spirit!
Now add to that the fact that Jesus was Jesus, the Son of God, and you can imagine that he was ready to burst with energy!
And Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted for forty days. Notice that it is the Holy Spirit who leads Jesus to be tempted – it is not the devil. So many times, when we come to a time of testing, we blame the test on the devil. We think logically, that if the devil is giving us a test, then we are supposed to fail the test - the devil isn’t going to let us pass, is he? But it isn’t the devil who puts us into the test, although the devil may get to participate in the test – It is the Holy Spirit – God the Spirit is who tests us, who sets us up for a good test.
Now why does God test us? God knows our abilities, God knows our capabilities, God knows our weaknesses. Why would God test us?
I mean, it’s like a good football coach having his players run the 40 yard dash and timing them in the break between the last regular season game and the bowl game. Do you think that coach doesn’t know what each player can do? Of course he knows by now what his players can do!
No, the reason the coach has them run the 40 yard dash and times them is so THEY will know what they can do – both themselves and their teammates. And that is why God give us tests – so we can know what we can do. And God gave Jesus his tests so that both the devil and us would know what Jesus could do!
So when you are being tested, understand these points. God has created the test for you because God wants you to pass the test, and God wants you to know that you can pass the test and God wants you to be able to tell other people that you can pass the test.
So there are three tests.
First, Jesus is tested by going hungry. After all, Jesus is God’s Son, with a divine nature, but Jesus is also a human man, with the nature of the body that screams – get me some bread!
And the devil gives Jesus a suggestion, just whispers in His ear. "Turn the rocks into bread and eat them." After all, Jesus is the Son of God. It would be a good proof, right?
But Jesus understands that to use His divine power in that way would be wrong, it would be unfair to every human, it would defeat His mission on earth if he gave into the hunger and turned rocks into bread. For part of what Jesus has to do is to show us that a human can last for forty days without food. He has to show not only Himself but also us and the devil that humans are a lot stronger than we usually think. So He simply tells the devil, Himself, and us that “Man does not live by bread alone.”
Bread is just stuff. Our mind is stronger than our body. We are not animals – our will can be strong enough to fast for forty days.
I have read of Liu Zhenying, known as Brother Yun, who developed many house churches in China during the 1980’s and 1990’s. He later wrote a book The Heavenly Man. One day he was arrested and put into prison. Chinese prisons are bad – a dozen or more men in a cell with no running water, no toilets. Brother Yun simply began to convert men in the prison. He was beaten for this. So he began a total fast – no food – and no water – which miraculously lasted 74 days, and led to the conversion of many more men. He then recovered and after many more months, the Holy Spirit spoke to him and told him to walk out the gate. So he walked through several unguarded, open doors, across the prison yard and out the main gate, it was as if he had become invisible. These stories have been confirmed by other former prisoners who occupied his cell. He eventually left China and lives in Germany, where he promotes the Chinese “Back to Jerusalem” movement that is beginning to send Chinese Christian missionaries to the lands between China and Israel – Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria.
The second temptation of Jesus is of power. The devil suggests that if Jesus will simply bow down before Satan, the devil will make Jesus his prince, ruling over the world under Satan. But Jesus tells the devil, Himself, and us that we are to worship and serve only God.
Power, you see, is fleeting. If you try to control people to make them do what you want, you will have some power until those you try to control squirm out from under you – and that will happen! Even the Soviet Union, even Hitler’s Germany could not control completely. Trying to control other people is like squeezing a balloon. When you get control of one area, another area pops out.
If you tell people they must buy tofu from the cafeterias, someone will smuggle in a hot dog. If you force people to buy from the monopoly telephone company, someone will invent cell phones. If you force people to buy cable TV, someone will invent a Netflix or a Dish Network. If you raise taxes on New York businesses, businesses will move to North Carolina or Florida.
If you try to force anyone to do what is good for you and not for them - by their decision - they will find a work-around, even if you are right! And it doesn't matter if you control for the good of people or for evil purposes. If you say people can not worship they way they please, a hundred pilgrims will hire a small boat to take them to the New World. If you prohibit alcohol, people will smuggle bottles of alcohol in their boots.
But if you simply use righteousness and goodness and love, then those who also desire righteousness, goodness, and love will willingly work with you – not for you, but with you – to accomplish great deeds that are good for all. Only God has the righteousness, the goodness, and the love combined with the wisdom to be the best ruler. And Jesus knew that when you attach yourself to someone, you either go up or go down with that person. Jesus wanted to tell Himself, the devil, and us, that God is the one we should bow down before. God is the One to attach ourselves to.
God’s word is enough!
But if you simply use righteousness and goodness and love, then those who also desire righteousness, goodness, and love will willingly work with you – not for you, but with you – to accomplish great deeds that are good for all. Only God has the righteousness, the goodness, and the love combined with the wisdom to be the best ruler. And Jesus knew that when you attach yourself to someone, you either go up or go down with that person. Jesus wanted to tell Himself, the devil, and us, that God is the one we should bow down before. God is the One to attach ourselves to.
God’s word is enough!
In a third and final test, the devil had Jesus climb to the highest point of the Temple and suggested that if Jesus was really the Son of God, He should simply jump, and then quotes the Old Testament to indicate that angels would swoop in and save Him. But Jesus tells Himself, the devil, and us that we should not test God.
This was a subtle test. Indeed, all of the tests were testing Jesus’ pride. Was He really who He knew He was – the Son of God? This test supposedly was to see if God really loved Jesus – would God send angels to catch Him as He fell? But Jesus’ response reminds us, the devil, and Jesus that God is in complete and total charge and those who have true faith, true trust in God, a true understanding of Who God is, do not need to test God to find out if God loves them, for God has said God loves us. God’s word is enough! Testing God is actually our way of saying, “God, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you love me.” It is an attempt at manipulation because we simply don’t know, understand, or believe God’s promises.
And isn’t that the same thing that often happens between people? We create these artificial tests, we manipulate to determine if we are loved by our spouse, our parents, our children, our church? We drive off into the night and don’t come home until late to see if they waited up, worried about us. We play silent and wait for them to call us. Or we injure ourselves so they will come meet us at the Emergency Room – IF they love us.
To me, one of the saddest games people play is with Facebook – they forward some variation of this game: “I know you don’t really love me or read my postings – if you love me and are my friend, respond with a single word.” Or the other, older variation – “I’ll skip church three weeks in a row in the middle of flu season and see who calls me.” What they often don’t realize is that they have missed church so often that missing three weeks is not really unusual. Especially when only half the church shows up any given week because of illness, bad weather, etc. True love does not mean jumping at any test; true love often means respecting a person enough to let them go, assuming that they are adults who know what they want and need, letting them try out other churches, other friends, other lives, for we certainly don’t want the people we love to be miserable if they are miserable hanging around us.
It is quite true that the older man or woman who is there every week, twice a week and misses will probably get a phone call after a single missed service – or at least after two missed Sundays. And that’s because we know they love us, too and that only something far beyond their control would keep them from church. And they show that love by showing up at church all the time.
(You know, most people don't realize it, but in every good church, there are people who show up every week, there are people who show up 3 out of 4 weeks, and there are people who show up once a month or even just once a quarter. It means people are being attracted but are still being pulled by the world. They are looking for God at the church, but can't quite commit to every week!
It is a mark of a dying church when the only people who show up are the regular weekly people, for that means that no one is checking out the church.)
Jesus did not need to test God for God’s love because Jesus knew that God loved Him. And Jesus loved God. They talked every morning and evening, in the same way that my wife Saundra and I talk every morning and evening, and usually at noon. We are always in each other’s lives. But I also have relatives that I love – and I know they love me – yet we only talk about once every two or three months, because we aren’t in each other’s lives very much - we live too far apart.
And so Jesus, secure in the knowledge of God’s love, stood tall in the face of the testing that the Holy Spirit had begun and which the devil had tried to manipulate. And so the devil left Him alone for a while.
You know, this isn’t the only testing that is found in the Bible. Our first reading from Deuteronomy has such a test. Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Jesus did not need to test God for God’s love because Jesus knew that God loved Him. And Jesus loved God. They talked every morning and evening, in the same way that my wife Saundra and I talk every morning and evening, and usually at noon. We are always in each other’s lives. But I also have relatives that I love – and I know they love me – yet we only talk about once every two or three months, because we aren’t in each other’s lives very much - we live too far apart.
And so Jesus, secure in the knowledge of God’s love, stood tall in the face of the testing that the Holy Spirit had begun and which the devil had tried to manipulate. And so the devil left Him alone for a while.
You know, this isn’t the only testing that is found in the Bible. Our first reading from Deuteronomy has such a test. Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Every year, the farmers of Israel were to take some of the first produce each spring and bring it to the Temple. They weren’t supposed to wait and bring the leftovers at the end of the harvest – they were supposed to bring the first fruits to the Temple. If you think about it, that was a test of faith, for each year there is still much uncertainty about the harvest when the first produce comes in – will there be enough grain for the family for the winter? What if there is a late season drought – what if a hailstorm comes through and destroys the crops, what if a wildfire burns up the field, what if it rains so much the crops are drowned?
God says, “Give me my portion first and trust me to take care of you.” And, you know, we think that is all fine and dandy for ancient farmers, but what about those of us who live in a cash economy? What should we do?
Pay God first. Trust in God. God may not make you rich, but God will take care of you if you bring the tithe to God when the paycheck arrives.
A week ago last Friday, Saundra quit her job at the college. She felt she was not able to do ministry properly and was beginning to be affected negatively by the environment around her. So we talked and I encouraged her to quit, despite the fact that we can’t pay all of our bills on just my salary.
That afternoon, she stopped into the store to get us some juice. Just a single bottle of juice – of course that was when it was Friday afternoon, there was a snow storm coming, it was the first of the month with all those checks, and so it took a long time to get through the checkout line with her bottle of juice. And so she struck up a conversation with the man behind her in line, talking about the church.
When it was her time to check out, the man said, “I’ll pay for that juice. That’s on me.”
God will take care of us. God always takes care of us, despite everything. (She starts a new job tomorrow!)
God says, “Give me my portion first and trust me to take care of you.” And, you know, we think that is all fine and dandy for ancient farmers, but what about those of us who live in a cash economy? What should we do?
Pay God first. Trust in God. God may not make you rich, but God will take care of you if you bring the tithe to God when the paycheck arrives.
A week ago last Friday, Saundra quit her job at the college. She felt she was not able to do ministry properly and was beginning to be affected negatively by the environment around her. So we talked and I encouraged her to quit, despite the fact that we can’t pay all of our bills on just my salary.
That afternoon, she stopped into the store to get us some juice. Just a single bottle of juice – of course that was when it was Friday afternoon, there was a snow storm coming, it was the first of the month with all those checks, and so it took a long time to get through the checkout line with her bottle of juice. And so she struck up a conversation with the man behind her in line, talking about the church.
When it was her time to check out, the man said, “I’ll pay for that juice. That’s on me.”
God will take care of us. God always takes care of us, despite everything. (She starts a new job tomorrow!)
You know, there are people in the United State who could afford to give away $100,000 every hour and never go broke. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos of Amazon. Our God is far richer than those men. And we worry about whether or not we will have enough money to pay our bills. What can God provide us with?
We always forget what God has told us through the Apostle Paul in our Romans reading. Romans 10:8-13 Let me remind you...
"On the contrary, what does it say? “The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”
This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
Now the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes on Him will not be put to shame,” for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, since the same Lord of all is rich to all who call on Him. “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
So what is the problem? What test can’t you pass? Is Jesus Lord? Do you believe that God raised Him from the dead? You will be saved!
Beyond that point, everything that is left is learning how to swim in the eddies and currents of life’s river. For God has created out lives with eddies and currents, and the Way of Holiness that we learn from following Jesus is the way to swim in that life river without trouble. But just as a beginning swim coach might say, “there are only two things you need to know – move your hands and feet, and breath only air, not water “ there are only two basic things needed to be saved by God.
- Tell someone that Jesus is Lord, meaning it.
- Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.
With these two ideas, you can be saved and pass any test.
We sink in life’s river when we forget this basic fact, when we forget that we are already saved, that God has us by our collar, that God is good, and God is strong enough to lift us out of the water.
God is helping you see your fear!
So when you see a test or a temptation, consider these three questions:
So what is your fear? Are you afraid that negative things people say about you is true? Are you afraid you will never again have a job? Are you afraid certain people won’t love you? Are you afraid you’ll be unloved forever? Are you afraid you’ll die? And tell me, Christian…what is wrong with death when you have Christ?
They say that most people drown when they panic from the fear of drowning. For experienced swimmers know that people generally float very well – especially people with a bit of fat on them. And so, if you keep from panicking, even if you don’t swim well, you can just concentrate on lifting your nose above the water every time you breath – and you will survive. Lift your nose and breath. Lift your nose and breath.
And the same thing goes for all the testing and temptation that we go through in life. If we remember that God loves usand has the power to save us, that death in this world means we will be with Christ in the next, we will be okay. Imagine a button with the words “Don’t Panic!” in big friendly letters. And on the other side of the button are the words, “God’s got this!”
After all, it was God who sent you the test, remember? And the test is almost always a version of “Do you really trust God?” So give the right answer: Trust God and beat the test!
We sink in life’s river when we forget this basic fact, when we forget that we are already saved, that God has us by our collar, that God is good, and God is strong enough to lift us out of the water.
God is helping you see your fear!
So when you see a test or a temptation, consider these three questions:
- Does God love me enough to save me? Answer: Yes! He sent His Son to die for our sins on the cross!
- Can God have the power to save me? Answer: Yes! He created the entire Universe!
- So will God save me? Answer: Yes! He loves you and has the capability to save you.
So what is your fear? Are you afraid that negative things people say about you is true? Are you afraid you will never again have a job? Are you afraid certain people won’t love you? Are you afraid you’ll be unloved forever? Are you afraid you’ll die? And tell me, Christian…what is wrong with death when you have Christ?
They say that most people drown when they panic from the fear of drowning. For experienced swimmers know that people generally float very well – especially people with a bit of fat on them. And so, if you keep from panicking, even if you don’t swim well, you can just concentrate on lifting your nose above the water every time you breath – and you will survive. Lift your nose and breath. Lift your nose and breath.
And the same thing goes for all the testing and temptation that we go through in life. If we remember that God loves usand has the power to save us, that death in this world means we will be with Christ in the next, we will be okay. Imagine a button with the words “Don’t Panic!” in big friendly letters. And on the other side of the button are the words, “God’s got this!”
After all, it was God who sent you the test, remember? And the test is almost always a version of “Do you really trust God?” So give the right answer: Trust God and beat the test!
No comments:
Post a Comment