September 18 – My Utmost for His Highest – “His Temptation and Ours” We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. -*Hebrews 4:15 Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in **James 1:14, “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord’s temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptation of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see ***Galatians 4:19), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things---he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil. Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus’ baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One “who takes away the sin of the world” (****John 1:29) He “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (*****Matthew 4:1) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation “without sin,” and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. -Hebrews 4:15 ** But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. -James 1:14 *** My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. -Galatians 4:19 **** The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! -John 1:29 ***** Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. -Matthew 4:1
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 18:14:59 +0000