Double Jeopardy

Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

 

Willing Exposure
Willingly, Jesus goes with the Devil to a high mountain.  This is the second time.  Here is Jesus isolated away from everyone except the Devil.  He is willingly taken into a place of testing and trial.  Going once was enough.  Now, He goes with this pure evil creature a second time.  It is isolation.  He is one on one with the strength of evil.  

The Devil has no authority over Jesus.  This is a choice of Jesus, Himself.  He is proving to us and to the Devil and to the entire world that will read this for centuries, that He is able to resist evil to the uttermost on behalf of mankind.  Amazing!

 

Extra Exhaustion

There are times God asks us to go the extra mile into exhaustion.  Think of how exhausting it must have been to put up with pure evil stretching against you.  There are times He asks us to do that.  We want to rest.  We want to quit for a season.  We want to lay down and cry in our pity.  God calls us to continue.  God calls us to do it again.  Jesus gave the example to follow.

 

Michael's Stretch

It was late for Michael.  Three times this week, he had stayed up late.  Each time a friend called and wanted to talk.  Then he would pray for an hour or more after the phone call.  The alarm in the morning was barely enough to cause him to wake.  He wondered how long he could keep doing this.  Wouldn’t that friend get to a point of surrender to Christ soon?  Must he talk to him every night?  He knew that was God’s plan.  He knew it was the right thing to do.  He knew he was the one person between Jack and a decision for Christ.  How long?

 

ACT:

Sometimes we fail.  Sometimes we give up and go on to something else.  Sometimes exhaustion takes us out instead of us moving forward.  Where have you failed and left a task undone exhausted?  Don't go back.  Go forward.  Let the old go.  Get your heart and mind ready for the next stretch.  Maybe it has already started.  Open yourself to being in this position as a directive of God to stretch you.  Put an extra hour into preparing yourself.  Get some extra sleep.  Read some extra bible.  Strengthen yourself.

 

 

PRAY:

Father, I am tired.  Yes, I am tired.  I would love to have the strength to go forward.  My own resolve tells me I could fail.  My own strength tells me I could fail.  Yet, I know You have placed me into this spot.  How do I stand?  How do I do more than stand?  How do I prevail instead of fail?  Strengthen me.  Give me the grace to keep moving forward.  I don't know how to prevail.  Only in your strength could I continue to stand.  I am in jeopardy of failing in the face of evil.  You have stood here many times in Your people in the strength of Jesus.  Stand with me.

 

Lord, God

Matthew 4:6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. :7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Satan’s Troubler

Satan had trouble with meeting Jesus. His intent was to trick him and cause Him to slip. He met his match. He met the Lord, God.

Meeting Jesus means meeting the Lord, God. His is able and willing to deal with any situation. He is Lord.

 

Stuff tries to put us down.  Stuff tries to break our spirit.  Stuff tries to rob our joy.  

 

Jesus is joy.   His kingdom is righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit.

 

Prince’s Defeat

With success after success, lately, Prince had defeat after defeat.  No one wanted to work with him.  They were envious and defeatist.  Somewhere from deep inside, he summoned up some joy.  

 

“Good gracious”, he declared aloud.  “If no one will walk with me, then I will walk alone.  They can follow, can’t they?” 

 

Those thoughts seemed good.  His smile came back.  He took charge of his life.  He began to work out issues and others joined with him.  Sometimes you just have to rob the joy back to get going.  Sometimes you need to give up trying one way, admit defeat, and take another route.

ACT! Bow to the Lord. Give up. Meet Him on terms of surrender.

PRAY! Father, I give myself to the Lord, Jesus. He is Lord. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. I surrender to His love and mercy and Lordship.  I surrender to His joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.

 

Taken

Matthew 4:5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

Taken By Evil:  The fact that Jesus would allow himself to be taken anywhere by the devil astounds me. 

What was going through His mind at those moments? 

Here he was, led by His own Holy Spirit, to spend time with evil.   Here he was entering the beginning of His public ministry dealing with a defeatist devil.  Our present thinkers tell us to feel good and be happy and then minister.  Our present ideologies point to pleasure as the entry to ministry.  Jesus allowed himself to be taken into the presence of evil itself.  This was His entry point into public ministry.  He allowed testing.  He presented himself for inspection.  He was taken.

Pushed and Popping: Pushed to the max, Jim was about to pop.  This was supposed to be his year to get the big promotion.  It began with pain.  Employees were livid with some decisions he had made.  Every emotion in him was twisted.  He had worked night and day and given himself totally on behalf of these.  They turned on him.  The year before, he had handled the torrents of accusations from a disturbed man.  The threats had been against these very employees that now turned on him.  For defending them, he now stood their accusations of being unfair and inequitable.  Was this how to start his big year? 

He resigned himself to stand through the accusations.  He remembered that the name, Satan, really meant Accuser.  He remembered, Jesus had stood testing before His big year.  Surely, he could allow the Healer to live in and through him in this critical time.  “Father, forgive them”, he whispered, “They don’t know what they are doing.”

ACT! Testing is never fun.  When God has something big, He can allow life and, yes, even the devil a place to sort out our intentions and grace living.  Is there a place of testing in your life?  Is God preparing you, stabilizing you for the next big thing?  Submit to the test.  Let it prove you out.  Don’t fight.  Let God fight for you.  Take time to pray Psalm 35 and see what happens.
PRAY! Father, I am not my own defense.  When life and the enemy rise against me as a flood, You be the boat of my salvation.  Carry me away from that which is too strong for me.  Deliver me from the hand of my enemies.  Cause in me conviction to repent of those weaknesses in me that could have led to this situation.  Cause holiness to well up in me.  Cause me to crucify any flesh that needs changed.  Let these troubles be a directional that causes me to become closer to You in thought and word and deed.  Cause me to be more like You than ever before.  Then, in the next big thing, I will be able.  I will be founded.  I will be strengthened to do that to which You have called me.  I surrender myself to be taken.

 

Handled by the Proceeding Word

Matthew 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. :4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God

 

Deuteronomy  8:1 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD

Lessons Take Time:

The thrust of God’s action into our lives is learning and growth and increased connection with Him and His ways.  When pressed against a challenge to faith, Jesus responded with a principle taught through many years to us.  Lessons take time. You don’t just read a story and a principle and get the gist.  Life embeds the lesson in your heart.  Experience makes it real.

 

Out of the Abundance of the Heart:

Great pressure reveals the deep parts of our soul.  For the Hebrew nation God tamped a daily lesson into them over 40 years.  That is a long school.  Then He made sure it was recorded in a clear format for all generations along with the story.  But the lesson does not become ours until we live it.  Then the lesson becomes a commitment and goes deep into the heart for other days to reveal.

 

Life is Long:

In the kingdom today there is a lot of feel good philosophy.  Theology is what I started to write instead of philosophy.  But, theology is the study of God and His revealed interactions with us.  When you study Him, yes, He wants us to feel good and created a large world of opportunities and relationships in which to enjoy.  But, the end and purpose of life and His word lived through us is not feel good, it is change and intimacy and trust at magnanimous impacts on our soul.  The little feel good, happy day, slough stuff of candy religion lasts about as long as cotton candy at the state fair.  It gives out quickly.  He wants long lasting impact on our soul.

 

Live and Increase and Enter and Possess:

Whew!  He is serious.  Intents of God are for prosperity and posterity.  When we step into that for which He has prepared us and spoken of us, He wants us to stay and take rule.  At the lake I have a large lot and a moderate home.  The beauty sooths my soul and gives me strength for other days.  First I hunger and struggle with the world, then I get to go take some refreshing manna at the lake and be strengthened.  Along with the lot and home is a boat.  My adult children love water sport. 

 

This weekend a belt on the engine broke.  By God’s grace the final stripping took place close to the boat ramp and we were able to get back to dry land.  At first inspection we decided to let it pass and just swim in the lake.  This would need a boat mechanic was our thought.  Then a neighbor, who is a mechanic, came by and offered some advice that made the task look simple.  Time to possess.  My son and I shot off to the local parts house and acquired a comparable belt to match.  Digging into the setup on the engine, we soon found easy was not in the dictionary on this one.  Encouraging each other, we kept convincing ourselves we could do it.  And we did.  And the boat is back on the water.  And we build relationship.  And we are humbled by our ignorance.  And we are tested in our faith and confidence.  And we are affirmed in our trust. 

 

Manna:

As we found ourselves at a juncture when we could not go forward a picture jumped in my mind.  Another belt had to be removed first and it looked to be a long process if we went forward.  Just two days before I had seen a bicycle tire tool for removing and remounting in my shed at the lake.  Laughing out loud, it struck me odd as to why this tool would be here.  It stowed away in a tool box that had had other items I needed for some job.  Right at this pause in the activities of the weekend, I was organizing my shed so we could fit all those big water toys around my woodland man toys (tractors, chainsaws, lawnmowers, etc..)  Even at the moment of seeing it, the questions hit me, “Why are you here tool?  Did some angel place you here for me?  Will I need you?”  Maybe you don’t see life that way.  I do.  Too many times God intervened in such a propitious manner for me.

 

So, I ran to the shed, snatched the simple small tool, ran back to the boat, and voila in a matter of seconds had the belt off, we were confident we could get it back on later, which we did, and we only had four or five more problems to solve to final solution of purring engine.  The humility of understanding we were in God’s gentle teaching hands kept us going.  And my son and other son got some wake board time before he had to drive back with his wife, my daughter, and my other daughter and her foster grandchild and my wife’s sister and her two children.  Whew again!  A lot of people get involved in living out our lessons of living and written word.

 

Proceeding Words:

Merriam-webster.com  Proceed

1: to come forth from a source : issue <strange sounds proceeded from the room>2 a: to continue after a pause or interruption b: to go on in an orderly regulated way3 a: to begin and carry on an action, process, or movement b: to be in the process of being accomplished <the work is proceeding well>4: to move along a course : advance

 

Proceeding words of God come from a source (Him), continue with us, take us in an orderly and regulated manner in activity, are part of a process of being accomplished or finished or developed while moving us along a course or designed path of God.  They are alive through Christ.  It is no longer us that are the living force, but Christ, the Living Word, that lives in and through us taking us through humility to greatness.

 

 

ACT! Take the plunge.  There is a challenge in front of you that wants to be avoided.  It cries to be avoided.  Resistance is written all over it.  Yet, you know there is manna waiting for you when you run out of ideas and strength.  You know you will hit failure in the task and need to depend on Him.  Engage.  Start.  Trust.

PRAY! Father, bring the bread of life, Jesus, into my dryness, into my hunger. Apply the word of life, Jesus, to my need that I might stay
strong in Your strength, not my own. When my understanding and strength run out then grace me with manna.  Put the unexpected and intentional tools into my hand and strength into my soul to continue with the proceedings.  It is Your way.  It is Your heart.  It is Your intention.  Take me through the process of embedding Your words deep into my soul that they will become my living source.  I live to be changed by Your proceedings spoken into me.

 

The Word Proceeding

Matthew 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. :4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

As Jesus answered, He simultaneously declared His existence. Meeting Jesus means meeting the very living expression of God's word. John tells
us "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." It is not the bread of this world that meets our need, but the living bread of life, Jesus that
will give us strength in the deserts of life.

 

Words are important to growth.  So many times how we present a word or phrase to someone else means everything in the world for the next step in our relationship.  A friend struggled with a key relationship.  There was just an accusatory bend to every conversation with a new friend.  After looking for solutions and probing for what was wrong, we were surprised.  It seems in the first meeting with the other person, this friend acted before he spoke.  The speaking was important to the other person.  They had harbored an offense from the first action wanting words to come first.  Getting through that misunderstanding was tough and touchy, but they are doing better.  It has taken words to find the problem and begin healing it.  Words count.  The word of Jesus in us can heal.

 

Not everything heals.  Some hold grudges and live with filters of unfillable need.  You can offer.  You can make a difference in those that receive.

ACT! Are you dry and hungry in an area? Spend time talking to Jesus about it today. He is the bread, the word of God that brings strength.

PRAY! Father, bring the bread of life, Jesus, into my dryness, into my hunger. Apply the word of life, Jesus, to my need that I might stay
strong in Your strength, not my own. Let me be one to pour His words into others.  Let Your strength come through my words to others.