Temptation

Posted on by korgrocker

“If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”
1 Corinthians 10:12-13 NLT

People who have misinterpreted or misunderstood God’s grace have to face a problem with sin. Believers read 1 John 1:9, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness”, and some of them then think that their sinful behaviour will be ok because God will forgive them anyway. But there are consequences to wrong behaviour. The thief next to Jesus on the cross was forgiven his sins (“today you will be with Me in Paradise”), but his excruciatingly painful death was going to happen anyway. God’s forgiveness wasn’t going to stop the consequences of his sin. No one can assume that salvation brings them immunity from the earthly consequences of their own behaviours. 

But Paul moved on to the subject of temptation. We are all tempted in some way. “Just one more cake won’t make any difference” could be the anguished cry of someone trying to lose weight, and the temptation of a muffin on the table before them being too much to resist. Our enemy, the devil, will know our weak spots, and he will always try to cause pain and disruption in a believer’s life. The “surely God didn’t say…” lie still reverberates around the recesses of human minds. But we may find ourselves fearing a situation in which we are unable to resist the temptation before us. Temptation is ubiquitous and experienced by all human beings, believers and non-believers alike; we need to remember that every believer who has ever lived has faced the same temptations that we do. Just because we have confessed our sins and now enjoy the experience of salvation as God’s children, it does not mean that temptations will disappear and no longer bother us. 

One Scripture that is always encouraging and helpful is Hebrews 4:14-16, “So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most”. Jesus, the God-man, was able to resist the temptations that we experience. He faced them all as a Jewish boy and young man growing up in Israel, but He did not sin. And so, when faced with temptation of any kind, we can call upon Jesus for His help to resist what is before us. 

Paul wrote that “God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand”. He continued, “When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure”. There was a dramatic moment in Joseph’s life that is recorded in Genesis 39. His master, Potiphar, had a wife who was determined to have sex with Joseph, but he resisted even to the extent of running away. Genesis 39:10-11, “She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house”. Joseph escaped, only to find himself back in prison, where we read, “But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the Lord made Joseph a favourite with the prison warden” (Genesis 39:21). We pilgrims won’t all experience a Potiphar’s wife situation. But we might be overlooked for promotion in the office, or shunned in the community, all because we resisted the temptations that were arrayed before us.

Sadly, believers everywhere can refuse God’s help in resisting or escaping temptations. The consequences are sinful, and although God will be gracious and merciful in forgiving our sins, the outcomes might not be ideal. What if Joseph had succumbed to Potiphar’s wife’s charms? Genesis 39:9 recorded these words from Joseph, “No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God””. And that’s the thing. If we rebel against God through our sin, we must hurt Him terribly. When God observed the people’s sins on earth in the days of Noah, we read, “So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart” (Genesis 6:6). 

Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:12-13). We will never “show the results of [our] salvation” by continuing to give in to temptation. 

Dear Heavenly Father. You are so gracious and kind, and surely Your goodness and mercy pursue us through our daily lives. We pray that You do not lead us into temptation, in the knowledge that You know what’s best for us, and will deliver us from all the evil coming our way. We thank You. Amen.

Our Reciprocal God

Posted on by korgrocker

“To the faithful you show yourself faithful; to those with integrity you show integrity. To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.”
Psalm 18:25-26 NLT

David wrote that God responds to our faithfulness and integrity in our dealings with others, with faithfulness and integrity to us. In the Amplified version of these verses, we receive a little more clarity, “With the kind (merciful, faithful, loyal) You show Yourself kind, With the blameless You show Yourself blameless, With the pure You show Yourself pure, And with the crooked You show Yourself astute“. I suppose it is quite logical really – if we are kind to others, then God will be kind to us as well. We know all about that from Galatians 6:7-8, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life“. In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7). We also know from the Lord’s Prayer a principle about treating others – “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Putting it bluntly, to a certain degree, God will treat us in the same way as we treat others, that is, until we consider the Cross. Are we not very glad that God hasn’t treated us as our sins deserve, instead considering us righteous through our repentance of sins, and forgiveness from Jesus? Thankfully, God does not immediately punish us every time we commit a sin, or think a sinful thought. 

David continued with thoughts about purity. Again, I suppose it is quite logical, that an impure person will not be able to see God’s purity. This will only become clear when the person looking at God is pure himself, which is perhaps why we only see God as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely“. Back in the Beatitudes, Jesus taught, “God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). The converse therefore has to be true, in that an impure, sinful, heart will blind our eyes to God.

We pilgrims live in a season of God’s grace, in that He amazingly forgives us our sins, and declares us righteous before Him. But that grace shown to us has to be extended to those we meet and greet every day. Jesus told the story of a man who owed his king a debt far beyond what he could ever repay. Threatened with imprisonment for himself and his family until the debt could be repaid, he begged the king for forgiveness, and the story continues with the man being forgiven for the whole debt by the king, who took pity on him. But the same man then went and demanded from one of his fellow servants repayment of a comparatively insignificant debt. Unfortunately the man had his fellow servant thrown into prison until the debt was repaid. we pick up the story in Matthew 18:31-34 “When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. ‘Then the master called the servant in. “You wicked servant,” he said, “I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed”. Ominously, the story ends with Jesus saying, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart“.

There is a different economy in the Kingdom of God based on forgiveness and righteousness. Because we pilgrims have been forgiven a debt that would be impossible to pay in our own strength, we have a different perspective on all those around us. Rather than looking on in judgement, we look through a Heavenly lens, illuminating grace and love. And we apply the fruits of our forgiveness to those less fortunate, showing them a glimpse of our Heavenly Father’s heart.

Dear Father God. Thank You that we can stand righteously before You, having been forgiven a debt far beyond our wildest expectations. In amazement at Your grace and favour, we worship You today. Amen.

The Lord’s Mercy

Posted on by korgrocker

“Lord, have mercy on me. See how my enemies torment me. Snatch me back from the jaws of death. Save me so I can praise you publicly at Jerusalem’s gates, so I can rejoice that you have rescued me.
Psalm 9:13-14 NLT

The negative words in these two verses – torment, enemies, death – are countered and balanced by three more – mercy, save and praise. And in a nutshell, that sums up the amazing love and grace of our God. Every challenge and fiery dart from our enemy the devil is deflected by the mercy of God. We are not left unprotected on our own, powerless in the face of our enemy’s attacks. David prays for the Lord’s mercy in the face of hostile attacks so that he can once again praise God “publicly at Jerusalem’s gates” and “rejoice that [God] has rescued [him]”. 

David’s picture is perhaps one of a capricious God, to whom a request has to be made to see if He would do something to help him. David appeals to God by presenting to Him his situation (as though God doesn’t already know) in the hope that David praising Him publicly would be enough to get Him to act. Of course, in our season of God’s grace, we know differently. We know a God who is so full of mercy that He wants to act on our behalf in the face of the devil’s attacks, if we let Him. He has provided all the resources we need to protect ourselves from our enemies and has promised to bring us home to Him one day. The rest is up to us.

David’s prayer is one that we would all do well to emulate in our own lives. How did we feel when we woke up this morning? What was on our minds? Were we struggling to get up and face the day, one perhaps we fear will be riddled with difficulties and negatives? Instead, our minds must realign themselves through God’s mercy so that we can praise God for His salvation and for rescuing our thoughts from the attacks of the enemy. 

So as we lay in bed, the alarm having just gone off, the day full of real or imagined terrors, depression lapping at the fringes of our minds, we have a choice. God’s mercy is there for the taking and it will turn us around to start the day with praise and rejoicing, because He has already defeated the enemy that so often torments us. So instead of reaching for the news or social media reports on our phones or tablets, we instead must reach for the Good News that deflects the devil’s attacks. The writer to the Hebrews wrote this, “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (Hebrews 4:16). Whatever we have done, there is a place of forgiveness in God’s presence, and, once there, we will find the peace Paul wrote about in Philippians 4:7, “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus”. 

Dear God. Your mercy knows no bounds and we thank You for Your loving kindness, so freely available to Your children. Amen.

True Sheep

Posted on by korgrocker

“The people surrounded him and asked, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus replied, “I have already told you, and you don’t believe me. The proof is the work I do in my Father’s name. But you don’t believe me because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
John 10:24-27 NLT

Jesus seemed to be surrounded by an increasingly antagonistic crowd of people, who were unsure about His claim that He was the Messiah and in any case unable to accept His teaching that anyone who believes in Him will inherit eternal life. As has been said before, the people before Him, probably heavily influenced by the Pharisees and their followers, were looking for a Messiah who would bring about a radical reform of the political situation and bring about the re-establishment of Israeli as its own nation once again. But for some reason they were unable to relate the prophecies about the Messiah to the Man, Jesus, who was standing before them, because they favoured one and ignored the other. On the one hand there was the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53, and on the other the King and Ruler in Micah 5 and Zechariah 9. It was the latter portrayal of the Messiah that the people in the crowd in front of Jesus were expecting. But with the benefit of hindsight we have been able to separate the two prophetic groups into the First and Second comings of Jesus, something that eluded the Jews of His day.

Jesus said to the crowd in response to their question about who He was, by saying effectively that He had already told them and the miraculous works that He had done had proved it. And He went on to say that, as the Good Shepherd, He was going to look after those who were His followers. As for the crowd before Him, they were not his “sheep” because they didn’t believe in Him. We pilgrims are hopefully the true sheep who know Jesus, who know His voice, and who follow Him. And in return he knows us. What a wonderful place we are in! But there are other “sheep”, people who claim to follow Jesus, but in reality don’t. They may be religious people, who faithfully say and apparently do all the right things, but who don’t really know His voice, and He doesn’t know them either. Jesus told us about such people in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’” Hard words indeed!  But who are these people? They claim to be Christians, and many labour away doing wonderful things in Jesus’ name. I know such a person who calls themselves a Christian but who has replaced faith with things they do instead. A nicer and friendlier person is hard to find, and they never refuse a request for help. But they are convinced that their good works are sufficient for their salvation, and refuse to accept that salvation comes by faith in Jesus alone.

The go-to verse for me about an assurance of salvation is Romans 10:9-10, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved“. And we remember what Paul wrote in Romans 3:22-24, “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.” But in the end, the assurance of our salvation, and acceptance by God of being “true sheep”, boils down to faith. Romans 3:30, “There is only one God, and he makes people right with himself only by faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.”

If we are unsure of our status as sheep, we pray and if necessary have a discussion with our pastors or a trusted Christian friend who will soon put our minds at rest.

Dear God. It is only through believing in Jesus Your Son that we will become Your children. We are thankful for Your grace and mercy. Amen.

God’s Great Mercy

Posted on by korgrocker

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.”
1 Peter 1:3-5 NLT

In the previous verse, Peter wrote about grace. But he moves on now, to writing about God’s “great mercy”. What’s the difference? I came across this definition recently, “In His mercy, God does not give us [the] punishment we deserve, namely hell; while in His grace, God gives us the gift we do not deserve, namely Heaven”. That mercy is surely “great”. Imagine turning up in a court of law, knowing that we were guilty of the crime for which we have been charged, only to hear the judge declare us not guilty through an act of mercy. Our guilt was undisputed. Our punishment was deserved. But the judge had mercy on us. It will never happen we think, but God’s mercy extends well beyond that analogy, because He not only declares that we are guilt-free. By His grace He allows us to be born again into His Kingdom.

Nicodemus, in his night-time visit to Jesus, couldn’t get his mind around this at all. The concept of being reborn spiritually had never occurred to him. We read his earth-bound response to being born again in John 3:4, ““What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”” Jesus clearly explained to him the difference between a natural birth and a spiritual birth, and the necessity of both to be come a child of God. Jesus said in John 3:5-7, “Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’” God, in His great mercy, and through the Holy Spirit, brought us believers through a second birth.

Sadly, today, being a “born again” believer is treated with scorn and contempt by the media and anyone else who considers spiritual matters the source of ridicule. But Jesus was very clear about the necessity of being reborn spiritually to become citizens of, and in, the Kingdom of Heaven. If we only experience a natural, physical birth, that is how our lives will end, because we know that one day our natural bodies will die and decay, one way or another. But a spiritually-born person will find that after their natural bodies have died, their spirits will continue to live in God’s Kingdom. He promised never to leave us. And one day our spirits will be united with a new body. We read what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:1,3,  “For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands … For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies“.

God’s grace and mercy are intertwined into a loving outworking of His character. There was that moment when God chose to express His love for mankind by sending His Son, Jesus, to this planet, to save us from the consequences of our sins. We didn’t deserve such kindness. Jesus didn’t deserve to die. But it was all part of God’s plan. We are spiritual beings and God has planted within us His Spirit as a guarantee of the life to come. God is mercy. He can’t be anything else.

Dear Father God. Thank You for Your Heavenly blessings, so rich and undeserved. We worship You today and every day. Amen.