Christian Living

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AN EXAMPLE OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE

Matthew 4:1-11

After Jesus was baptized he again made a conscience decision to let the Holy Spirit take control. It is very important that this decision be made in order to make it stick in your life. If you don’t make this decision then you will come and go with the wind and never get anything done. But Christ constantly talked with the Father and always listened to what the Father had to say. He spoke only what he heard from the Father and went only where the Holy Spirit directed him to go.

This particular time Jesus was directed to the wilderness, a place where he could be alone. It was a place where he could talk to the Father without interruption and a place where he could be put to the test without any interruptions. Jesus was given 40 days in the wilderness to do with as he saw fit. But he realized that at the end of the 40 days there would be a test. So Jesus spent the time in fasting and prayer talking with the Father. It was a time of putting the flesh down and lifting up the spirit. The fasting is what weakens the flesh and brings it under subjection to the spirit. The prayer is what builds up the spirit to have power over the flesh. The prayer also brings us closer to God so that we can hear what God has to say and the power to do what God wants us to do.

After 40 days the flesh becomes very weak and will be susceptible to the stronger influences. But when you spend those 40 days in prayer the spirit becomes the stronger influence. Then when the test comes there will be no question as to who is going to win, especially when you use Christ as your example. Let’s look at this a little closer.

When Jesus started the temptation in the wilderness he had already spent 40 days without food and his flesh was crying for food. It was tired of being neglected and wanted some attention. His flesh was weak due to hunger so what does Satan do but hit him up with how the Father has neglected him in an attempt to get him to doubt the Father and let the flesh rise up by turning the stones into bread. Satan continued with you are the Son of God, so nothing is impossible to you. To a point he was right but the problem with Satan’s statement was the motive by which this would have been done. Jesus could have turned the stones into bread but then he would have been working in the flesh, instead of doing what the Father wanted. When you understand that anything done in the flesh even if it is a good thing is done for the wrong reason therefore it is wrong. We must understand this one thing, when it is done in the spirit it is done to please or uplift God. When it is done in the flesh it is done to please or uplift self. When you really understand this you will know why we must live in the spirit and put down the flesh. The flesh always tries to glorify itself no matter what.

When Christ determined in his heart to live by what God said the battle was mostly over all Christ had to do was to keep the flesh out of the way. He kept the flesh down by staying in constant communication with the Father there by keeping the spirit lifted up and strong. The next step is to know the word of God. Read and study it constantly, get the word down deep inside of you so that when you come into a test you will know how to each situation. Satan can not argue with the word but when you use it you had better know it, if you don’t know it Satan will take it and twist it around so much that it may sound right but will still be untrue. You will end up getting so confused you won’t know what is right. Satan tried it with Eve and he tried it with Christ himself. Eve got so confused and you know what happened to her. Christ is the word and he used the word to defeat Satan. Then each time he faced demons he used the word to defeat them. Christ showed us the power that there is in the word of God if we will get it inside of us and use it as it was intended to be used.

When Satan couldn’t get Jesus with food, he took him to the pinnacle of the temple. It was quite a site, by some reports it was the most beautiful site in Jerusalem. It was between 90 and 125 feet high and was always the object of attention, so it was seldom not being looked at by the people. Here Satan told Jesus to jump off that the angels would catch him. If Jesus would have jumped he would have been acting in the flesh and either way, if the angels caught him or not Satan would win. Let me explain this a little more. If the angels would have caught him someone would have seen it and spread the word thus making or forcing Jesus to become the King of the Jews in the flesh, which would have been outside the will of God and voiding all of the prophecies. If the angels did not catch him and he hit the ground, without a miracle he would have died right there acting in the flesh and outside the will of God also voiding the prophecies. Again Jesus put down the flesh and followed the spirit and used the word of God to defeat Satan from Deuteronomy 6:16. He was not telling Satan not to tempt him but reminding us that we are not to put ourselves into situations where we put God on the spot to fulfill our lust of the flesh.

In the third test Satan took Jesus up on a high mountain, this was Satan’s domain “the prince of the air” and showed him the entire world. Satan told Jesus if he would do just one little thing he would lay the dominion and authority of the entire world in his hands and walk away. It would then belong to Jesus and he wouldn’t have to die to get it. There was just one little catch and no one would know but the two of them. All he would have to do is to bow down and worship Satan, and then he could have it all. I have heard this preached that it was a trick that it was not Satan’s to give. But if you go back to Genesis with the fall of Adam the world became Lucifer’s so he could do whatever he wanted to do with it with in God’s permission. I am sure that Jesus’ flesh tried to rise up and accept the offer but the spirit quickly squashed the flesh…Jesus had already counted the cost of loosing to Lucifer. This is where we often fail, each time we look at the immediate results of a decision, but we don’t count the full cost. What would it have cost Jesus to obtain the entire world and not have to die for it? It would have cost him everything, Heaven, the spirit, and the world would have been lost forever. One thing that we must remember is that the word of God always defeated Satan and always will defeat Satan.

Most people think that there is no way Jesus could have lost to Satan because of his divinity but Christ went through this as 100 % man filled with the Holy Spirit just as we do. He was given the opportunity to spend time with God before the test just as we are and he used it unlike us. What Jesus went through was a test to see if he would live by the flesh or by the spirit. The flesh would make him fail the spirit makes us win every time.

Who are you going to listen to…it is not about you or me it is about Jesus Christ and the mission that he gave us to accomplish. If we can know how to take care of our situation immediately then we can know how to help our brothers and sisters immediately when they need our help.

The choice is yours live by the flesh or live by the spirit.

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