09/18/2017
Are you tempted as Jesus was tempted? Do you even understand what that means? When we as Christians look back at the difference between the alluring we faced before we were born again and those temptations that came following our conversion we realize that they are quite different. Our common temptations that occur in every person's life suddenly transformed themselves into temptations of a higher spiritual plane. We move from purely moral temptations to those which can alter our spirits and condemn our very souls.
Jesus was tempted as we are. He suffered the same common temptations that any man or woman would face. We like to see His perfection as the absence of common temptation because we hope for relief from the things that lure us to immorality every day... the sexual desires for someone not our spouse, or the wooing of a lie told to give us something that is not ours... well, you can list them as easily as I can because you feel them just as I do. Yes, Jesus felt them all, and struggled just as we struggle, but was able to deny these temptations... he was perfect in His resistance to moral sin and temptation; not void of its allure.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
Hebrews 4:15 ESV
Then, after He was baptized by John, and went into the desert, He was tempted on a much higher plane... He was tempted to deny God and align Himself with Satan. This is a type of sin that we can't begin to experience until we first accept God as our Lord... the God of our lives... and begin a relationship with Him as such. We can't be tempted to leave something we never had. But, once saved, we go from our common human tempting:
“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.”
James 1:14 ESV
to the temptations of sons and daughters of God. These are designed to deny us to God; to separate us from His presence and destroy our relationship with Him.
Jesus was asked twice if He was the son of God as He was tempted by Satan, and this signals to us that this is not the common temptation of the man Jesus, but of Jesus the Son of God. Then, in the final temptation Satan cut to the chase and asked Him what he had wanted all along... "all these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." But Jesus never wavered and made the famous statement recorded in Matthew as "Be gone, Satan!" or in Luke..."Get thee behind me, Satan." (You can read the full accounts in Matthew 4:3-10 and Luke 4:1-13)
Once we are believers our temptations change; just as we become heirs and joint heirs with Christ, we also begin to be tempted as He was. Satan begins his unrelenting effort to separate us from God.
I have watched children at play. They are all happy and involved in playing with certain toys, but when Johnny touches one of the favorite play things of another the mood changes. Even though that child is happily amusing himself, the minute he sees Johnny touch his toy he lunges forward, grabs the toy, and shouts "Mine!" Then once secured he sets the toy aside and goes back to what he was doing.
Satan is busy doing his thing in the world, but the minute he sees God touching us he shouts out "Mine!" And tries to snatch us back. He really has no desire for us... he just doesn't want God to have us. This is the same jealousy that caused him to be cast down in the first place... so he begins to tempt us, as he sets about to lure us away from God's hands.
Our temptation as believers in God and Jesus Christ is elevated to a higher plane. We are no longer tempted by the simple immorality of certain things, we are tempted to abandon our faith, and to return to a Godless state. Some of these temptations look the same on the outside, but the ramifications of them are much greater.
A man who doesn't believe is lost. When he sleeps with someone, not his wife, he may pay a worldly price, but spiritually he has nothing further to lose. A son of God however pays both a worldly price and a spiritual price. He loses his human dignity, and he loses his close spiritual relationship with God... perhaps his eternal life.
Before Being born again we are totally of this world. We may flirt with faith but never really pick it up in our hands. Our treasure is of the world. However, once we are born again, we have come into relationship with Jesus and God, and our hands are filled with the treasures of heaven itself. We suddenly have much to lose, and the temptations take on new and larger meaning.
Are you born again? Do you feel the struggle for your very soul occurring in the temptations you undergo? Don't believe the lies of Satan... the little worldly immorality that he is telling you has no real consequence has taken on far greater significance to you as a spiritual being. To split the trunk of a tree the woodsman first uses a small wedge to open a crack, then applies a larger one to split it completely.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the relationship we share, and I ask that you strengthen me as I resist the temptation that would separate us. Open my eyes Lord to the subtle lies of Satan as he attempts to separate me from you. Stand between him and me, and establish your claim upon my very soul. You are great and my love for you complete in my faith. Never let my faithfulness quiver or quake; keep it strong and filled with the wisdom and courage of your Word. Give me your hand when I teeter on the verge of falling, and call my name when I wander lost. In you is my trust and confidence... in you is my promise. As I undergo the temptations that Jesus faced, give my prayers wings, and hear them as I call to you. Let my faith be strengthened by your Holy Spirit, and my resistance to temptation perfect as it was with Jesus.
Rich Forbes