This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Christ’s Temptations And Ours
The first temptation of Our Lord comes to us on this line—“Be sensible, You are here for the service of men, and surely it is the most practical thing to feed them and satisfy their needs.” The clamor abroad today is all on this line, “Put man’s needs first; never mind about the first commandment, the second commandment is the all-important one” (see Mark 12:29-31). … The insistent demand in the world today to put men’s needs before God’s will is the outcome of the reasoning of human wits and wisdom…. So long as our wits and human solutions are on the throne, to satisfy the needs of men is ostensibly the grandest thing to do. …
Our Lord was then asked to compromise: “You will become the King of men and the Savior of the world by judicious compromise; build Your kingdom on broad-minded lines; be judicious, You know there is evil in the world; then use it wisely, and don’t be so intense against sin; don’t talk about the devil and hell; don’t be so extreme and say a man needs to be born from above. Tolerate my rule of the world, call things ‘necessary evils’; tell man sin is not anarchy, but a disease; fall down and worship me and my way of looking at things, and I will withdraw and the whole world will be Yours.” … Will the Church that bows down and compromises succeed? Of course it will; it is the very thing that the natural man wants. …
satan tried to put Jesus Christ on the way to becoming King of the world and Savior of men in a way other than that pre-determined by God. The devil does not tempt us to do wrong things; he tries to make us lose what God has put into us by regeneration, the possibility of being of value to God. When we are born from above the central citadel of the devil’s attack is the same in us as it was in Our Lord—to do God’s will in our own way. …
Every temptation of satan will certainly seem right to us unless we have the Spirit of God. Fellowship with our Lord is the only way to detect them as being wrong.
From The Psychology Of Redemption
Wow! Lots to contemplate here!
What do you think about the temptation of Jesus? Have you seen the same sort of temptations come your way?
One more thought from Chambers: “Temptation must come, and we do not know what it is until we meet it. When we do meet it, we must not debate with God, but stand absolutely true to Him no matter what it costs us personally, and we will find that the onslaught will leave us with higher and purer affinities than before.”
Craig T. Owens 