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pursuing the upward call with fear and trembling

just a 44 year old man seeking to share my meanderings with the world at large or the blogosphere at small

Friday, March 13, 2009

Follow-Up to Flux

I recieved 2 very good comments from friends on my last post and wanted to address them here. Jesus was tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin. In James it says that we are tempted by our own desires or lusts which are inside us. Jesus obviously NEVER sinned, but He WAS tempted as it said in Hebrews. My point regarding His temptation in the wilderness by satan was that Jesus experienced the temptation, just as we all do in our humanness, but Jesus immediately brushed aside the lure by recalling specific Scripture and choosing to obey His Father and His mission as Messiah. I think this scene was placed in Scripture as a very dramatic way to show Jesus did have opportunity to bypass the plan God had for Him and choose His own selfish path, but He diddn't, not then or any other time. Jesus came to destroy the worls of the devil, which is sin,rebelling against God and choosing selfish pride. Adam and Eve selfishly chose their own desires over Gods commands in the garden and experienced the consequences. Sin resulted in death. The law exposed sin for what it was and is, law cannot overcome sin, only expose and punish it. Grace,forgiveness and love and the perfect sacrifice overcame the wages of sin which is death. Gods free gift of eternal life was accomplished by Jesus perfect obedience and we recieve Him by faith.

Jesus paid our debt to God on the cross, once and for all. I mentioned the prophet Jeremiah declaring the human heart to be evil above all else, which fits the criterion given for satan btw. Jesus washes away the old and provides the new. We must accept and put on His life via faith however. Jesus provides us with new life as spiritually clean and restored children of God. Apart from Jesus, we still are stuck in our sin-infested flesh though and have no way to remove it because Jesus is the only way God gave for it to be removed.

I hope this gives more clarification and hopefully good discussion will go on. Jesus mind is pure,holy,unstained by any blemish of any kind. He knew His mission and what God His Father wanted from Him, as He showed at so many places in the Gospels, including the garden of Gethsemane right before He was betrayed by Judas. I could never support any notion that hinted at Jesus compromising Himself in any way shape or form, to me, in making sense of His temptation in the wilderness with there being no existence of a supernatural fallen angelic being, I can only conclude the satan or adversary referred to were thoughts which arose but which were immediately refuted by focus on Gods Word, no allowance for anything to breach His perfect nature and obedience.

Always hope to hear from anyone and everyone, will be back to more personal sharing soon. This is just something that really caught my attention and obviously shifts my focus in regards to understanding satan the devil in a major way. Happy weekend all!!!

1 Comments:

At 4:57 AM, Blogger Aphra said...

"I can only conclude the satan or adversary referred to were thoughts which arose but which were immediately refuted by focus on Gods Word"
Thank you for this, I found that insightful, though I think that might be a tool of Satan.

I read you comments on Barbara's blog about the Psalms. I'm reading through the Psalms now and trying to really feel what the author is saying. I have read them before and didn't really enjoy that part of the Bible so much because there was no story, there was no resolution/moral. But trying to really feel the emotions that are going on is very interesting.

Hope you have a good day :)

 

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