Wednesday, October 19, 2011

What Temptations Do Christians Face?

     “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”  (Heb. 4:15)


As taken from “Devotions for MORNING and EVENING DEVOTIONS with Oswald Chamber”


September 17  


   “The temptation fits the nature of the one tempted, and reveals the possibilities of the nature. Every man has the setting of his own temptation, and the temptation will come along the line of the ruling disposition. Temptation is a suggested short cut to the realization of the highest at which I aim—not towards what I understand as evil, but towards what I understand as good. Temptation is something that completely baffles me for a while, I do not know whether the thing is right or wrong. Temptation yielded to is lust deified, and is a proof that it was timidity that prevented the sin before. 


   Temptation is not something we may escape, it is essential to the full-orbed life of a man. Beware lest you think you are tempted as no one else is tempted: what you so through is the common inheritance of the race, not something no one ever went through before. God does not save us from temptations; He succours us in the midst of them.” (Heb. 2:18 pg. 538)


September 18   ( pg. 540 )  HIS TEMPTATION AND OURS  (Heb. 4:15)


    “Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is that mentioned by St. James—‘Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.’ But by regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, viz., the kind of temptations Our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus do not appeal to us, they have no home at all in our human nature.


     Our Lord’s temptations are ours move in different spheres until we are born again and become His brethren. The temptations of Jesus are not of those of a man, but the temptations of God as Man. By regeneration the Son of God is formed in us, and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth.

      Satan does not tempt us to do wrong things; he tempts us in order to make us lose what God has put into us by regeneration, viz., the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come on the line of tempting us to sin, but on the line of shifting the point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil. Temptation means the test by an alien power of the possessions held by a personality. This makes the temptation of Our Lord explainable.


     After Jesus in His baptism had accepted the vocation of bearing away the sin of the world, He was immediately put by God’s Spirit into the testing machine of the devil, but He did not tire, He went through the temptation ‘without sin,’ and He retained the possessions of His personality intact.

 Gwen Smith   September 12th, 2011     Take My Heart Captive


The devotion today is about the itchy pest of temptation. In order to be strong when we face temptations, we need God’s help. We are able to resist and refocus when we align our hearts and desires to the heart and will of God. That’s what this song is about. Hope it blesses!




Yes, Lord. Please take my heart captive. Amen
Amen?
Where does this song find you today?
Blessed to be doing life with you,
                                                                            Gwen


 jowildflowers@gmail.com  jean-oathout.blogspot.com

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