Verse of the Day 1/5

 

Matthew 4:7  Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"  English Standard Version (ESV)

 

In the second temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4, the Devil tempts Jesus to jump from the temple and let the angel's take care of Him and prevent Him from being injured.  He is asking Jesus to go beyond personal responsibility and in effect to test God, test the angels that they would indeed come to His aid.  Doing so would actually be an act of rebellion.

 

How many times in our lives have we "put God to the test"?  There are any number of ways that we can do this, most commonly it is in act of rebellion where we will go headlong into something counting on God to bail us out or to pick up and mend the pieces from a fall.

 

Jesus had just been in the desert.  He would have been week physically, the devil expected Him to be weak spiritually as well.  Jesus referred back to Deuteronomy and Israel's desert experience where the Israelites were grumbling and put God to the test by requesting that Moses produce water. actually putting God to the test.  Moses struck the rock at Massah and the water flowed.  But there were consequences.  (Exodus 17).

 

If we are a follower of Jesus, we need to realize that there will be desert experiences, but instead of "putting Him to the test", trying foolish things on our own we are to have and keep our faith, trust Him, seek Him and follow as He leads through that desert place.  Our attitude should not be to go with our gut with the attitude that "if it's a train wreck it's a train" wreck, but God will put us back on track; instead, stay the course, keep the faith and hold on with hope.

 

Some may look at the words from the Bible, especially the Old Testament, those that Jesus referred to in this passage as outdated, not relevant in today's world.  C. S. Lewis would look upon this as "chronological snobbery", defined as "the arrogant notion that the ideas of our own day are better than the ideas of a bygone day just because the ideas are in our day.  Chronological snobbery feels that things are truer because they are newer.  And so it is both irrational and naive."   Don't be a chronological snob, but may we, like Jesus,  be willing to say "as it is written".

 

In Christ,
Mike

 

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Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace  NIV

Matthew 4:6-9

The Message (MSG)

^5-6 For the second test the Devil took him to the Holy City. He sat him on top of the Temple and said, "Since you are God's Son, jump." The Devil goaded him by quoting Psalm 91: "He has placed you in the care of angels. They will catch you so that you won't so much as stub your toe on a stone."

⁷ Jesus countered with another citation from Deuteronomy: "Don't you dare test the Lord your God."

^8-9 For the third test, the Devil took him to the peak of a huge mountain. He gestured expansively, pointing out all the earth's kingdoms, how glorious they all were. Then he said, "They're yours—lock, stock, and barrel. Just go down on your knees and worship me, and they're yours."