SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/13/2020
9:02 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Triumph”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 4:11
Message of the verses: “11 Then the devil left
Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.”
We
read in our last SD that Jesus told the devil to be gone, and now we read in
verse eleven that “the devil left Him.”
John MacArthur writes that the devil had no choice than to leave
Him. He then goes on to write some good
news for believers: “The Lord gives all
His children the power to resist Satan. ‘Resist
the devil’ James assures us, ‘and he will flee from you’ (James 4:7). As he did with Jesus, Satan will not long
stay away from us; but with every temptation God ‘will provide a way of escape’
(1 Cor. 10:13). For every temptation
Satan leads us into, a way out is provided by the Father.”
We
mentioned earlier when we began this section on the temptations of Jesus that
in the Greek the word for temptation is neutral, is that this word can mean
either a test by God or a temptation from Satan and as we look at our text from
yesterday and today we see that Satan’s temptations failed, but God’s testing
succeeded. Jesus’ responses to the
tempter were, in essence, “I will trust the Father; I will not presume on His
Word; and I will not circumvent His will.
I will take the Father’s good gifts from the Father’s own hand, in the
Father’s own way, and in the Father’s own time.” (MacArthur). We see that the King was accredited by the
severest test that Satan threw at Him.
We
read on to see that after these temptations that “angels came and began to
minister to Him.” We saw at His baptism
that the Father stated “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Now the Father sends angels to minister to
Him, but this came after the temptation was over and not while the temptation
was going on, as Jesus could have asked for angels to minister to Him while in
the wilderness, but He did not. Jesus
waited on the Father’s own perfect time to send the angels to minister to Him.
I
mentioned that Jesus became hungry after the fast was over, and because He was
in perfect shape He became hungry in a much shorter time than regular people
would become hungry. I also mentioned
that when a person is fasting, having only water, that there will come a time
when they will become hungry, but three days after you begin to fast you will
not be hungry until your body tells you that you once again need to eat, and if
you don’t eat at that time you will begin to starve, but not before. I never experienced starvation the two times
I fasted, as I never became hungry while fasting. We don’t know for sure, but it is believable
that the angels fed Jesus as at this time His fast was over and He needed to
eat. Maybe they brought His some manna
(?).
John
MacArthur writes “Satan tempts us in the same basic ways he tempted Jesus in
the wilderness. First, he will try to
get us to distrust God’s providential care and to try to solve our problems,
win our struggles, and meet our needs by our own plans and in our own
power. Second, he will try to get us to
presume on God’s care and forgiveness by willingly putting ourselves in the way
of danger—whether physical, economic, moral, spiritual, or any other. Third, he will appeal to selfish ambitions
and try to get to use our own schemes to fulfill the promises God had made to
us—which amounts to trying to fulfill God’s plan in Satan’s way.
I
want to quote more from John MacArthur’s commentary in our next SD on this same
subject as I believe that we can learn much from what he has to say about this
very important subject. I have mentioned
that temptations are the biggest deterrent from growing in the Lord, but when
they are tests from the Lord they can cause us to grow in our faith and be
closer to the Lord. As we also learned
that these temptations from Satan on Jesus were tests from the Father and this
is also true with us and this is why we need to best understand how to handle
these temptations so that they become tests that God will see us through.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am learning what I need to do when
temptations come my way and I am thankful for that.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Win the
battle of temptations and as I do I will grow in the Lord. Continue to learn humility, and have joy in
studying the Word of God each day.
2/13/2020 9:54 AM
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