Physics 101

In the last Matthew Monday, we looked at Matthew 4 and how Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by Satan.  Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” 

How does the temptation of Christ in the wilderness equate to “being tempted in all things”? 

It has to do with the trinity of man: body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

The first temptation that Satan issues is directed toward Jesus’s body.  Jesus has been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, and Satan walks up and says, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Matthew 4:3).

Jesus answers, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).

Often times Satan uses our body to tempt us into sinning against God: food, sex, adverting pain and suffering, etc. 

But Jesus says, listen God spoke the world into existence.  His words are not just some kind of sustenance; they are life.  There’s nothing our body needs that God’s spoken word hasn’t provided: plants and animals exist because He spoke them into being, the opposite sex exists because of His word, and pain and suffering exist because we challenged His command in the garden, but with a word from Him they can end just as surely as they began.

The Bible says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-4, 14).

This physical world is a product of God’s spoken word.  Jesus is God’s word made manifest in flesh.  Satan doesn’t use physical temptation for the simple act of making us suffer physically; He uses it to get us to deny the very word of God, and this is why Jesus rebuffs the physical temptation with the scripture He does. 

We live and have our being because God speaks.  Understanding this truth is the key to overcoming the temptation of the flesh. 

Next week we'll look at the temptation of the spirit.

Strength in Silence

Men are generally known for controlling their emotions.  We don’t cry much.  We don’t get giddy much.  And when we get upset, we generally stop talking, stop responding, and shut down.  In our feminist culture these aspects of men are seen as huge weaknesses. 

Why can’t men be more open about their feelings? 

If you’re a woman in a relationship with a man, you’ve probably asked that question, and if you’re a man in a relationship with a woman, you’ve probably been asked that question.

But here’s the thing.  A man who is in control of his emotions is a good thing.  Read this week's Proverbs and Wisdom to find out why . . . Strength in Silence

Why Doesn't God Speak to Us More?

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a survey titled: If You Could Experience God . . . The question was “If you could experience God physically one way, which would you rather do”, and the following options were given:

Feel God

See God

Hear God

Taste God

Smell God

The results of the survey were

9%    Feel God

18%  See God

73%  Hear God

It’s encouraging to see so many wanting to hear God’s voice over any other physical encounter with God, but why aren’t more hearing the voice of God.  I think it has to do with our prayer lives.

Most Christians have a very shallow personal prayer life.  We pray in church, and we pray over our meals, and sometimes when struggles come up in life or if we really, really want something, we pray for help.  Our corporate prayer life is even more dismal, in that we might have a Sunday school prayer and a prayer during service, but there’s not much beyond that.  And the average duration for any of these prayers?  Less than 5 minutes.  According to a recent Gallup poll, the average Christian in America spends one hour a week praying.  One hour a week for the Almighty God, that’s all we can spare.

Let’s compare that to some of the other world religions:

Muslims are required to pray five times a day facing Mecca, each of these prayers are 10 – 15 minutes in duration.  So that’s about an hour a day. 

Hindus pray and meditate at least three times a day, usually lasting several minutes, hours, or days.

Buddhists meditate for hours, days, and sometimes months at a time. 

It doesn’t really matter which direction you turn all the other religions spend more time in devotion to their deities then average Christians do.  Why?

Exodus 20:18-19 has the answer.  God has just called all the Israelites to meet Him on the mountain.  He’s delivered the ten commandments audibly with a visual display of His glory, and it says, “All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. Then they said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die."  God is offering to be their God and offering a relationship with them unlike any other in history since the fall, where He will talk to them audibly, and they reject it out of fear.

Just like the Israelite’s on the mountain, God has offered us a personal relationship with Himself unlike anything offered before.  To have Him dwell within us and redeem us, yet we don’t pray as often as these other religions. Why?

It’s because we have a living God who will answer us.  It’s easy to pray or meditate all day when nothing is going to answer.  But we know He’s going to answer, and we’re afraid of hearing His voice.  We’re afraid of feeling His presence.  We know that when He comes near, He’ll point out all those things that we do wrong, and He’ll require change.  We know that He’s going to turn our comfortable little worlds upside down, so we stay silent.  We approach quickly and nimbly with trite empty prayers and run away before He can reply, and we say, “Pastor, you talk to God and tell us what He says.”