The usual spring thunderstorms-in-the-night event arrived last night. Me and the cat both looked a little sleep deprived and spooked this morning. Last night, I thought on temptation. There are some temptations that are immediate and seemingly impossible to resist. I'm thinking of say an open sack of your or my favorite candies in the house. Your willpower may be powerful, a thing of beauty to behold, but I can tell you that in my house the remainder of that sack of candy is toast. As long as the temptation lies within reach, my willpower is a weak and sickly thing that fails in the test. On the other side of that is that ten million dollar mansion on the edge of town. We are probably good at resisting that because the 20% down payment is so far beyond our means that we laugh at any temptation to purchase that house. It's those temptations that lie within reach that get us.
When the devil tempted our Lord in the wilderness, it wasn't with wild and far out things. Jesus could certainly have turned those loaf-shaped stones into bread. The angels would have saved the Lord from a terrible fall at His command. And, the devil did gain the dominion over the world when Adam gave it up, and might have ceded rule of the kingdoms to Jesus (or he may well have been lying). All the temptations the devil threw out there were within our Lord's reach, but Jesus reached for none of them. He answered the temptation with scripture.
I can say with some certainty that there is a lesson in that for you and me.
Have a scriptural day in Christ!Bucky
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