Do not be derailed from our walk with God

Today's sermon was on Luke 4:1-13, on Jesus's temptations. It is interesting for me because this pericope of the Gospels have always intrigued me: why should Jesus be tempted and what were the implications of the temptations? 

We see here that Jesus was tempted both of his Sonship and Messiahship. He suffered through it all and is qualified to be our Saviour and Messiah. He shared in our humanity and suffered through the most extreme form of temptation. As much as the first Adam has failed, the second Adam was victorious.

Satan's desire is for us to fail and be derailed from our walk with God. 

So it is of great importance for us to find out for ourselves what does it mean for us to live as an obedient child of God. Satan would always want to drive a wedge between us and God. What are our weak areas or even areas we think we are strong, that nothing with move us?

Based on Jesus's three temptations, we need to be careful about:
1. Being tempted to use our own power and position for our own purposes. We must be obedient in our afflictions.
2. Being tempted to take shortcuts to glory. We may be offered a crown without the cross, without suffering, but it will not be real crowns in the end. 
3. Being tempted to test God's faithfulness.

We also need to be alert at all times because even if we think we are fine now, Satan is still at work and will look for every opportunity to derail us away from God. And he will be deceiving and we might not even realise it until it is too late.

pearlie