1/3/13

1/3/13

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry. During that time the devil came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread." But Jesus told him, "No! The Scriptures say, 'People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.' " Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, "If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, 'He will order his angels to protect you. And they will hold you up with their hands so you won't even hurt your foot on a stone.' " Jesus responded, "The Scriptures also say, 'You must not test the Lord your God.' " Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. "I will give it all to you," he said, "if you will kneel down and worship me." "Get out of here, Satan," Jesus told him. "For the Scriptures say, 'You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.' " Then the devil went away, and angels came and took care of Jesus. (Matthew 4:1-11 NLT)

Have you ever had someone try to prove your Christianity wrong by trying to use scripture against you? How about this one, "the bible has so many contradictions in it?" Or how about using this one against you, "I could never be a "christian" because "christians" say the Bible says that all homosexuals are going to hell, and I just think that is judgmental?" Today we have a great example from the God-man who's footsteps we are supposed to follow in. The chief liar, who we saw deceive Adam and Eve yesterday, decided that he could trip up his greatest adversary, Jesus. And how did he do it? By taking scripture out of context, by using twisted scripture and Jesus' physical hunger (40 days of fasting) to try to entice Jesus to stumble. But Jesus knew the best way to fight back. Scripture answered all the questions for him. Jesus knew scripture. He had it at the ready. It was his sword, his attack weapon. The apostle Paul put it this way: "take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." (Ephesians 6:17b NLT) King David said this: "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." (Psalms 119:11 NLT) We have example and we have instruction, but this will never work unless we do what Psalm 119 says. We need to hide God's word in our hearts. We need to have the word of God in us, and we need to have it at the ready when we are confronted with the tough questions. Like when someone you know is offended by a redneck Christian from Louisiana paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 when talking about homosexuality in a GQ magazine interview, and they know you are a Christian and want to know your thoughts on the matter. How will you respond? What does scripture really say? Are you ready to answer this? The bible also says that we need to work at this. "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV) We need to be ready, we need to be able to rightly answer the hard questions. Do you have God's word hidden your heart? When was the last time you memorized scripture?


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