Dealing with temptation: "I can’t wear two hats"
Matt 4:10 ”Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’”
It is verses like this that put a line in the sand and proclaim, “this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus.” One of the closed handed, fundamental attributes of a follower of Jesus is that they must pledge their complete loyalty to Christ and serve Him only. To pledge loyalty to any other thing within the world above Jesus Christ or to mix loyalty to Christ with something else in the world is to give into Satan’s temptation and in giving into Satan’s temptation we equate something of the world with God or worse, we demonstrate with our loyalty that something in the world is more important than God. We should not be surprised that Satan is constantly tempting us to intertwine loyalty with the world and our loyalty to God. We should not be surprised with the thought that creeps into our minds that says, “its ok…the two are basically the same…Jesus understands that this is your life and there are certain things you have to do…Jesus knows your heart go ahead and commit your loyalty to ‘x’.” But yet this verse makes it very clear that loyalty to Jesus is the first and foremost priority for someone who claims to follow Jesus. Jesus comes before job, family, country, status, money, friendships, hobbies…etc. If this is not true in our lives we are not being a follower of Jesus.
Lord Jesus, may your forgiving grace come into my life today and free me from those things in my life that I make a priority over you. Lord, forgive me for those times this past week when I stayed up late knowing that is was going to effect my ability to get up and spend time with you. Lord, forgive me for making “Dirty, Sexy, Money” more of a priority then spending time with you early in the morning that I could do your work later. God I am not fit to be your child; I am too evil to even deserve to be in your presence let alone start your church. But God, I thank you today that your grace is greater then my evil and that through Jesus Christ you have forgiven me of my evil and freed me to live a different life. Help me today to allow your grace to be a greater influence in my life then that evil that rages inside of me….use me to communicate your gospel, help me to make you the most popular guy ever in Fayetteville. May you give me the grace to make you known and not myself; help me to make waves for you today. I thank you Lord for inviting me into this new life; be my King today and allow nothing else to take your place.
I am reminded today of the loyalty and courage it takes to follow Jesus Christ; I am reminded that it is only through God’s grace that I am able to have this loyalty and courage.
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