Wed. January 18, 2012 Jesus Tempted Again

Again the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.'" Then the devil left Him, and the angels came and attended Him.

Salvation Wednesday, Salvation Wednesday, help bring in the lost so they can be saved. Salvation Wednesday, Salvation Wednesday, help bring in the lost so they can be saved.

Good Morning, my dear brothers and sisters, it is Wednesday and I just came in from feeding our goats and our pet chicken. We were having a bit of snow. Lake effect, they say, but hey, we do not have a lake. Myself, I would love to call it our "onion snow."

Anyway, pray for the lost today, and yes, everyday. Please remember that we cannot save anyone, but Jesus needs us to get out the good news of Salvation through Him so that the lost can be saved. Also remember that we have Vicki on our daily prayer lists.

On the front page of the Patriot-News, the morning paper out of Harrisburg Pa., it talks about the number of abortions which came down in the year 2010. The abortions dropped 1.4 percent from the year before. Both sides, pro-life and abortion folks, were trying to say they had a hand in it. FOLKS, IN PENNSYLVANIA THAT SAME YEAR WE MURDERED 37,284 UNBORN BABIES. Folks, nobody has bragging rights on this until the number of abortions is ZERO, ZIP, NONE, and all God's people shouted AMEN.

Dear Father in Heaven, help us to stop the killing of the unborn babies, help us, Lord, these are Your children. Lord, please please lead us in what we can do to help. In the name of Jesus,  Amen.

Once again Jesus is tempted by Satan. Matthew 4:8 - Again the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." 10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.'" 11 Then the devil left Him, and the angels came and attended Him. (NIV)

NIV=New International Version (I use a large print, New International Version Study Bible, and also a large print King James Version for some of the scriptures.)

Again I want to take a look at the scriptures to see the example that Jesus is setting for us. In the scripture today Jesus is being offered all the kingdoms of the world if He would just bow down and worship Satan. This is funny and to explain my thinking on this and bring out this fun part I want to go to John 1.

John 1:1 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through Him all things were made, without Him nothing was made that has been made. 14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. (NIV)

This is what is so funny, here we have Satan, the master of evil trying to give to Jesus, WHAT JESUS CREATED. So Satan wanted Jesus to bow down to Him and then he, the devil, would give control over all things to Jesus... Wow, Jesus had that control and still has the control over most all things except man and a few other things, like animals. Yes, God gave it to us, all those things, well, except for that one tree. I am sorry but it just struck me funny this morning. Now let me get back to some of those examples that were set by Jesus in these scriptures.

Now Jesus told Satan that He would not bow down to him, or anyone but our Lord God. If I were to ask you, do you bow down to Satan and worship him, I would think most if not all of you would say you do not bow down to Satan, but the fact remains sometimes we do seem to worship others or more so other things. I would think the most worshipped thing, what would be worshipped more than anything else would be the almighty dollar. Money, we have heard it is the "root of all evil" and while I think maybe Satan is the root of all evil, money surely must be the trunk. Even in some religions I would see people bow down to some of the leaders in the religion. In our flock at the Bridges we have people from many church backgrounds, and once in a while someone will bow to me at the door and thank me and use a name other than Pastor. I correct them at once, and tell them, please, please give God all honor and glory, I am just a servant for Him as we all need to be. One other thing that I want to point out to you, other than Jesus saying we should bow and worship God and God alone, is found in Matthew 4:11 - "Then the devil left Him." Folks, I do believe that once Satan has had his run at you and after trying and trying to get you to worship him, he will leave you alone. But we also need to be careful for if he cannot get to us, he will for sure come after those we love. I also want to bring out from that same verse this Matthew 4:11 - "and angels came and attended Him."

Brothers and sisters, if we are truly only going to worship God and we are going to live fully for Him, we will find that the same protection offered to Jesus is available to us. Pray for it and expect it. Let's pray now for God's protection and also for a renewal in Jesus and for those not saved, for salvation... Are you ready?

Dear Father in Heaven, I Love You and today ask that You forgive me of my sins again. Yes indeed, Jesus, I am a sinner and I am sorry that I keep messing up. Forgive me, Lord, and wash me white as snow and come live in me. Lord, I pray today for the unsaved and pray they will come fully to You to be saved. For all other of our prayer requests each day, Thy will be done. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

Now go forth serving your King, King Jesus, and sharing those blessings He so richly poured out on You. Share them, brother.

By the way, no one responded with an answer to my question of yesterday, so I will ask it one more time. In yesterday's scripture Matthew 4:7 "Do not put your Lord your God to the test." However there is one thing you can test Jesus on... what is it?

Love ya, Pastor Dan