Category Archives: temptation

Holding my line..

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“.. listen obediently to God, your God, and keep the commandments and regulations written in this book of revelation. Nothing half-hearted here, you must return to God, your God, totally, heart and soul, holding nothing back… And I command you today: Love God, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by God, your God…

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: I place before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life… And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life…

(Deut 30.10,16,19-20)

Do you hear lady wisdom calling?.. right in the city square where the traffic is thickest, she shouts, “You – I’m talking to all of you.. –  I’m telling you how to live well, I’m telling you how to live at your best.. Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me, awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day’s work. When you find me, you find life, real life, to say nothing of God’s good pleasure..”

(Pr 8.1,3,6,32-35)

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. … My sheep recognise my voice. I know them, and  they follow me. I give them real and eternal life.

(Jn 10.13&27)

I am a choral singer – that means I sing with lots of other people, not necessarily at the same time or in the same notes.. one of the most important skills we have to develop is to hold our own lines against others when they are doing totally different things from us! It struck me at a recent rehearsal – where not only the other singers but also the orchestra are doing things that clash horribly with my line of music – that this discipline and skill of both finding and then sticking to my own line is a metaphor for the life of a follower of Jesus in a world of hostility to the gospel.

From the very beginning of the story – when Adam and Eve chose to listen to a different voice, singing a different tune – it has been clear that who we listen to will have huge consequences for us and our eternal wellbeing. By listening to, and acting in agreement with, the voice of the serpent, Eve set in train events which are still being played out today. She and Adam knew the voice of God, and chose to listen to another instead.

God has always given his people freedom to listen to other voices, but if we choose to follow their advice, or stop listening for his voice, then we will be heading for trouble. A singer has to listen to all that is going on, but if they are to hold their own line, there will be certain chords and notes which will give them the cues they need and the support to keep going as the composer intended they should! Do I know where to find those cues among the cacophany of other voices which bombard me all the time, suggesting that God cannot be trusted, that Jesus is a myth, that religion is a private thing and not to be talked of, or that it is dangerous and something to be ashamed of?

Followers of Jesus listen for his voice – we turn to the records of his ministry, to the letters of his disciples, to the Hebrew scriptures from which he quoted and where he saw himself foreshadowed. We listen for his voice in scripture, and we listen hard, so that every tone and characteristic becomes dear and instantly recognisable, no matter what else is going on.

Followers of Jesus also listen for each other – just like the others in my particular section of the choir. We hear one another, we depend on one another’s discerning and ability to hold the tune against others – as a group we are so much better and stronger than on our own. In the same way, I am weakened in my faith-listening if I never do it with others, I make myself so much more vulnerable than I need to be!

Almighty God, give your children the will and the discernment to listen out for and fix upon your voice among all that would distract us. Bless us with companions who desire to listen to you, and who will help us to remain faithful to your tune, your rhythm, your composition for this world and your work in it. Help us, if and when we stumble in our line, to realise quickly that we are astray, and to listen with fresh hunger and desire for you, so that we return to your path and glorify you.

I will… He will!

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The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid? When evil people advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling, he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord.

Hear my voice when I call, O Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Saviour. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. Teach me your way, O Lord; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. Do not hand me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence.

I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

(Psalm 27)

What are the enemies lined up against you this week, the ones that make your flesh shrink and your spirit quail as you consider their threats and are aware of their power? It is unlikely to be physical foes for most of us, but I don’t think that robs this psalm of all it has to say to us, as believers who are nonetheless on the front line in our faith.

We face the arch-enemy of our Lord, who delights to attack Christ by attacking Christ’s followers, the ones for whom he died and with whom he so closely identifies. This identification is the reason we are attacked, but it is also the reason that we can be sure of our ultimate security and victory. Our Lord Jesus will not let any of his little ones be carried out of his arms by the evil one – NOT ONE, no matter how weak or foolish they may be. As we learn to recognise our assailant – the driving force behind all our very real temptations to despair, hopelessness, cynicism and disobedience to Christ – so we learn to pray with the psalmist to the one who has decisively crushed and triumphed over the enemy.

We affirm our heart’s desire, which is to know and see our God; we look forward to sacrificing with joy and praising his name for his power in our salvation and ultimate deliverance to glory. We affirm our confidence in him as victorious, and as totally good, anticipating that we will see that glorious goodness in our lives and the world around us. As we do these things, we are reminded of who God is, and strengthened to resist the temptations which it would dishonour him to succumb to. Whenever his children look up by faith and say, Lord, for your name’s sake I choose to resist this temptation, then all heaven rejoices!

Almighty God, who for the sake of your dear Son, our Saviour, looks on us with love and delight, we rejoice today in all that you do for us. Thank you that as we face our great enemy, we can pray with David, standing on the solid ground of your character and promises. Lord, sustain your servants as we seek to live godly and Christ-glorifying lives. May we wait with confidence, trust with hope, and rejoice always in who you are. Thank you that you welcome us, though all others reject us; that you set us high upon the rock of salvation and hide us from the destructive power of evil; thank you that you keep us safe unto eternity and the resurrection life you have prepared for us.

Watch your feet!

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Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers… For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

(Ps 1.1&6)

Hear my voice when I call, O Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek… Teach me your way, O Lord lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.

(Ps 27.7,8 &11)

“And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

(Lk 1.76-79)

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me…. You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me…. If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him… Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you..”

(Jn 14.1,4-6,23 & 27)

I love to walk, on my own or in company, in the city and in the countryside. It just feels good to be moving, to be experiencing my surroundings directly, all the sights, sounds and scents, and the occasional interaction with other people on the way. It is not always wise to simply wander however – especially here where  following one’s nose can lead to a sheer drop, a boggy morass, or a river in flood! I need to keep my wits about me, and to be wary of assuming that I am on safe ground.

The metaphor of life as path along which we walk is frequently used in the psalms, and it was this which prompted my thoughts for today. How often, as a follower of Jesus, do I ‘walk’ in my thoughts to places that attract or intrigue me but which might not be particularly safe or helpful? It is easy to follow our noses, follow the company around us in a conversation, follow the trend of our culture, and find ourselves in new places. We stand and look around, then perhaps we find ourselves settling there, ‘taking a seat’ mentally as we choose to identify with this new place. Or perhaps we don’t agree altogether with it, but the thought of extracting ourselves and walking away again is too daunting, too much effort and even embarrassing for us.  

We need to walk warily my friends. We need to remember that while we are called to live ‘in’ the world, yet we are not to be ‘of’ it, nor to make ourselves at home. Where am I headed each day? What is my daily path of thoughts, occupations, assumptions? I cannot and must not cut myself off from this world, but I must remain vigilant and notice my surroundings as I walk. 

The psalmist prays for the Lord’s leading into a ‘straight’ or safe path, and so may we. We can pray for wisdom to discern dangers on our path and its surroundings, so that we are prepared to keep our minds on the Lord and his word, his promises and faithfulness. We can pray to be delivered from thoughtless wandering into dangerous company where we might be tempted to settle down, because in so many ways it feels good, perhaps even familiar. It is so easy for the enemy of our souls to camouflage wrong thinking, making it attractive and comfortable – less likely to provoke the wrath of our godless world. 

Lord Jesus, you are our only safe way; only by you can we walk in peace into our eternal inheritance and glorious future; only in you do we find perfect wisdom, and through you find our joy in living. Let us so deeply crave crave your peace, wisdom and joy, that we cannot be comfortable anywhere these things are not found. May the wisdom of the world never beguile us into making ourselves at home in it. Watch over our ways, guard us and keep us always in your paths.

Playing hide and seek…

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Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden…

(Gen 3.8)

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night you hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord” – and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him. You are my hiding-place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.

(Psalm 32.6&7)

I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, may stronghold. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.

(Psalm 18.1-3)

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.

(Psalm 27.4&5)

The narrative of the bible is clear that the effect of sin from the very beginning was to cut humanity off from the one who loved them, and created them to share life with him. And it was their shame, and consciousness of having done wrong which drove Adam and Eve to hide from God when he came seeking them.

As a follower of Jesus, one who has admitted her need of a saviour, and who claims to be forgiven by God because of the sacrifice made for me on the cross, I know in my head that I no longer need to hide from God. The whole point of my Lord’s death and resurrection was to re-open the way for me – and every other sinner who accepts the offered grace – into the welcoming arms of my heavenly Father. I am free from guilt, sin no longer has power over me, and the devil himself cannot pluck me out of God’s hand.

But it is clear from the words of the psalmists, and of the apostles themselves, that as believers we are vulnerable and forgetful, and so often try to tackle the enemy of our souls in our own strength. We act as though we had to deal with sin before we can come before God again – we hide away from him, ashamed of what we have done, thought, or failed to do; we allow sin to become a barrier again between ourselves and the freedom and peace which are our inheritance and birthright in Christ.

Forgive us Lord,  for our short-sightedness, and misplaced confidence. We needed a saviour in the first place because we do not have the power to defeat the enemy who wages this war – against you, in our lives. We needed a saviour to destroy that power for ever, and he did it, on Calvary! But we still need that saving power, every day, to fight and win the battles in our lives over and over again. We will NEVER in our own strength, be big enough to defeat evil in all the devious and persistent ways which it tries to draw us away from Christ.

So instead of hiding from God as we struggle with persistent and secret sins, with all those things of which we are so ashamed, we need to run to him, and hide in him! It is only from the safe stronghold of his arms that we can look upon evil and have confidence; only in the name of Christ that we can claim the victory; and only in the blood of Christ that we receive forgiveness for our ongoing failures, setting us free to persevere and even to hold up our heads with pride in the one who has loved and chosen us.

Who is on the Lord’s side? I am! By his grace I will remain here; by his strength secured from harm. He fights for me, let me cling ever more closely to him and cry ever more readily for help, so that I may rejoice ever more in the deliverance which he delights to give.

Hiding in plain view?

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Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil..The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written:’Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,”he said,”throw yourself down. For it is written:”He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” Jesus answered him, “It is also written:   ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'”

(Matthew 4.1-7)

So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

(1 Corinthians 10.12-14)

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

(James 4.7)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the command to die to self, about the supreme example which Jesus set for us as we follow him and God transforms us into Christ-likeness. And almost immediately, I was plunged into a turmoil, a maelstrom of emotion and trouble which threatened to overwhelm me as I struggled to cling to Christ,to discern truth and solid ground on which to stand. In God’s goodness, he provided me not only with praying friends, and sufficient self-restraint not to act or speak out of my agony, but also a clear insight into the source of my troubles..

I am a target, as are all believers, for the hostile and insidious activities of that enemy who was defeated on the cross but who nonetheless remains at large – a mystery of God’s sovereignty for which we must trust him. There is a devil, and his whole powers, such as they remain, are devoted to undermining the church, the body of Christ in the world, by all and every means possible. It behoves us, as those desiring to live for Christ, to be aware of this enemy – not in an obsessive way, but alert to the possibilities of his presence.

Our culture has largely dismissed this agent of evil, and if we are not careful, we forget and fail to recognise him at work – which makes us vulnerable to his tricks. He is a master deceiver, so adroit at clothing himself in selected truths and borrowed garments that we entirely fail to unmask him, and think we are meeting a friend, a trusted adviser who has our good at heart.

We see from the temptations of Jesus, that the devil is a master at using our natural desires and needs in order to undermine our trust in and dependence on God. Of course Jesus was hungry, and he had every ‘right’ as the Son of God, to transform the barren rocks into food. But Jesus discerned that this was not the time, and resisted, trusting God to meet his hunger instead. The devil quoted scripture to Jesus, persuading him that it could only be right to prove God’s care for him – again, Jesus resisted, taking scripture on his own side as vindication.

My particular weaknesses, needs, deep hurts or anxieties which I carry through life, are my points of greatest vulnerability to these attacks by my great enemy. And if I cannot recognise his hand at work, oppressing me; or discern his tones within the voice which is counselling me to put my own needs first, because “of course that is what my loving Father would want…”,it is all too clear how easily we can be led into dangerous thoughts and actions which result in the havoc in which the devil delights.

It is surely fitting that in the Lord’s prayer, we are taught to ask to be delivered from temptation, from the hands of the evil one! But we are also assured by God’s word that in every place of temptation, there will be a way out, the possibility of obedience to God is always there, no matter how loudly our feelings may be screaming at us to follow another direction.

Thanks be to God, for his kindness in revealing the source of my troubles, for unveiling the enemy, and thanks be to Christ, in whom I have the victory. I may be a wounded soldier, but I am still on the winning side, and my captain is always ready to respond to my call for his help!