Year 2 Day 32

Year 2 Day 32

Pray (ACts)

Read - Mark 1:12-13, Hebrews 4:15

Message - Alan Burke

All of us face temptations in so many ways, don’t we? Yet we are called to obedience to our God that’s what we thought about on Wednesday. Obedience to him should mean more than what we want, more than our comfort, more than having our perceived need met, more than our well being, more than our pleasure, for as Jesus said “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? (Mk 8:34-36). You may rightly say to me that I know nothing of what you face, I can never understand the temptations that you face and you are probably right but the good news is our Saviour can.

In Hebrews we are reminded that; “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb 4:15). Our Lord and Saviour was tempted in every way but as without sin, we may think, well he wasn’t tempted in the way I am, he wasn’t tempted with the things I face, so then how was he tempted in every way? He was tempted in every way because behind his temptations throughout his life, he experienced temptations that were real and beyond our understanding, greater temptations that we will ever face and at each point he resisted, he overcame. He knew what it was like to be tempted, he was fully human, yet he never sinned. He can sympathise with us in our weakness because he experienced what we experience and now he at the Father’s right hand intercedes for us, speaking on our behalf (Heb 7:25).

The temptations that Jesus faced that we summed on in the words ‘pleasure, pride and power’ are temptations that we all face, but the point is not to be like Jesus, instead look to this Jesus who overcame Satan for you. Stop trying to do it in your own strength to resist temptation, instead look to him in what we face, the one who is able to sympathise with us our weaknesses. 

Pray (acTS)

Sing

WSC
Q44 What doth the preface to the ten commandments teach us? 
The preface to the ten commandments teacheth us, That because God is the Lord, and our God, and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments. (Luke 1:74–75, 1 Pet. 1:15–18)
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