Christian Living
I decided to read through Matthew 4 (Bible’s Narrative on the temptation of Jesus Christ) again; probably for the umpteenth time, and there it was, staring right at me: God’s Strategy for Tackling Satan!
Isn’t it instructive that in all three (3) instances of Jesus’s temptation, Jesus did not consider it a dialogue of any sort. He seemed to have approached Satan decisively and business-likely.
Scene 1
Satan: “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread”.
Jesus: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God'”.
Scene 2
Satan: “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written; ‘He shall give His angels charge over you and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone”.
Jesus: “It is written..’You shall not tempt the Lord your God'”.
Scene 3
Satan: “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me”.
Jesus: “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
Isn’t this absolutely entertaining? Imagine it as a movie, and probably you’d appreciate Satan’s tricky and sad display of f-o-o-l-I-s-hness!
Jesus had an ‘it is written’ for All of Satan’s suggestions and gimmicks. (Selah). No ‘pleading of the blood of Jesus’, no sprinkling of the blood, no anointing oil bath, no holy water drama, no running to papa, pipi of mummy G.O!
Ephesians 6: 17, identifies the SWORD of the Spirit as the word of God.
The way I see it, every child of God is always at war. You ask me how I know that? Because the devil is always roaming around looking for who to tempt, who to kill, who to steal from and who to destroy.
But praise God that, no matter the depth or weight of the wiles of the devil all the Believer needs is an ‘it is written’!
Sometimes, as we see in scene 2, the devil can even attempt to twist the word at us. He pushed right back at Jesus an ‘it is written’ from Psalm 91(seemed quite ridiculous to me reading it!).
Jesus allowed no room for discussion on this matter. Like….
‘you wanna show me the bible? do you know how long I’ve been born again, preaching, teaching the bible?’ or I (Jesus) I am the word and you wanna pull ranks with me on it?
The moment we engage in such useless arguments or discussion, we basically fall headlong into Satan’s trap, giving him a good laugh.
So then, we need to constantly ‘be hearing’ the word and meditating on it such that at any time (t), we simply just release it.
No break of sweat!!
Jesus already did it all.
Halleluyah
