Not Today Satan (Daily Devotional)

Hello everyone and welcome to Living Supernaturally. Thank you so much for joining us, for this time to spend a few moments in God’s word and pray together. Luke chapter 4, verses 1 and 2, ‘Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry.’ There are two things that we could notice from the opening verse of this passage about Jesus’ temptations. Firstly, the timing it happened, after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Secondly, Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit into the desert. Although it was the devil who attacked Jesus, it was God, the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into that battle. 3 times the devil tried a disguise, a temptation as something good. Turning stones into bread would have sounded good to someone who had just fasted for 40 days. Satan also used scripture trying to twist its meaning to tempt Jesus but Jesus stood firm, drawing strength from God’s word to resist the devil and satan tried to dazzle Jesus with an offer to give Him all power and authority that He deserved, but Jesus turned to scripture again showing that He and God’s word are far stronger than satan and any temptation he can throw at us. How did Judas go from being a disciple to being willing to sell out for his savior? The gospel reveals a sequence of temptations. In John chapter 13, verse 2, we learn that before the last supper, the devil had already prompted Judas to betray Jesus. This was a prompting from outside, an idea, a thought, a whisper, a temptation, a bit of mischief, instead of pushing away that thought, Judas listened to it and stan entered Judas. The external prompting unresisted by Judas became the gateway for sin into his life, until he passed a point of no return. His behavior became determined by satan’s influence which led him to betray Jesus. Judas did not start out knowing he would betray Jesus but this was a result of entertaining temptation after temptation. When his conscience finally awoke, rather than allowing guilt to draw him back to Christ, Judas gave in to despair. We have all felt shame and guilt of giving into temptation but this does not leave us without hope. Though we often fail to resist the temptations pull, a repentant heart finds strength and forgiveness in Christ. The devil sets out to disqualify Jesus from His ministry, God however was out to qualify and equip Jesus for His ministry. Sometimes, the very thing that the devil would use to destroy us is the very thing God uses to build us and to bless us. Let us pray, Father, we thank you, thank you that you have given us the strength to overcome temptations. You have set the example for us, that it is not by might, it is not by power but it is by your Holy Spirit. We pray that you will empower each one of us in this journey as we walk with you; in times when we feel weak to gain strength form you, times when we fall, to look to you for you will rise us up with wings like eagles, thank you for your promises, we give you all the praise and glory, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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Daily devotions to strengthen your faith each day. Daily Devotional for Spirit filled living. Each daily devotion is about five minutes in duration. These daily devotionals are centered around a weekly theme. So there are seven daily devotions that focus on the theme and bring you insight, understanding and revelation from the Bible. Each week’s theme is listed as a series. So you can listen to the current week’s devotions or go to any previous theme/series that speaks to your present need (https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotions ). Also available free sermons (https://apcwo.org/sermons), and free Christian books (https://apcwo.org/books) to nourish and strengthen your faith.