I was going to write something completely else today but well ...Today's reading comes from Luke 4:1-13. Read it in your favorite translation. I won't confuse/bore you with my old school NKJV. If you don't have a bible there are many available free on the internet.
From the little religious teaching I have received I remembered that scholars propose that what the devil is doing is tempting Jesus to be a different kind of savior. In the first one he is tempted to save the world by feeding it. In the second he is tempted to be a political savior. In the third he is tempted to wow people with miracles and use that to lead people to God. Though Jesus did feed people, did miracles, and uses people really God sent him to save the world by dying for the worlds sins. (There is probably lots of info on this if you are interested)
There are a couple of things that stick out to me. Jesus allows himself to be tempted, he doesn't tell the devil to leave, but rather was lead into the wilderness.
I'm not getting at that we should go look for trouble, but rather sometimes there are things that work at us and sometimes we need to walk through the fire to overcome them. I would rather skip the whole process. Two things comes to mind for me,
In my line of work it is all about ideas and putting them together. My "Big" idea was an underwater hotel. Beside all the shortfalls of that idea and the fact that someone is already doing exactly that I believe God asked me one day "Why I was working so hard". The truth is because that is all I knew what to do to full fill my dreams. God showed me that I could work so hard and only at the last step lose everything, so I gave it to God. I consider this one of the great temptations that was offered to me, and with God helping me over come it. I drastically changed my thinking and it matured me.
This past year and a bit I have had more than one invitation to join a different lifestyle, and you know even though I "know the facts" ... when the day comes will the reasons for your choices be enough to weather the storm. The truth is that my understanding of the world has changed again and I not the same person that I was a year ago because of it. I have never been so convinced that we humans never really different then we where 100 years ago or 1000 years ago ...
I am not saying that I am mighty ... or am anything mature/great, but rather it shows my weakness that where tried(and I am guessing they will be tried again). It helps me to see life as a journey and we make statements about what are living for in the decision we make.
I am not saying that we should go look for trouble but rather if we like Jesus are "led by the Spirit" Luke 4:1 we could be shown where we would be if God left us to ourselves.
Anyways those are my thoughts.
God bless us
God lead us
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