Before Church Blog

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Make Your Mark! by Elizabeth Stone

Matthew 4: When Jesus was tired and hungry, when He had been fasting and praying in the wilderness for 40 days, the devil comes to tempt the Savior. Satan doesn’t come when Christ is rested, strong, and satisfied with good food and drink; he comes when Jesus is physically vulnerable.  The devil attacks on three fronts: hunger, suicide, and power with glory.  Each time the devil is trying to get Jesus to obey him, rather than God. Most of all, the devil is trying to derail the plan of salvation. You see Satan knows that Jesus, well, He’s THE GUY.  So if he can get Jesus to sin – even once – then Jesus can no longer do the work of the Father.  And let’s not give the devil too much credit here; Satan cannot see the future and has no idea of the Father’s plan to save us. But when God steps out of eternity in the Person of the Son, Satan knows he has to stop Jesus, he has to stop THIS GUY. 

Round 1: make stones into bread.  Use divine power to satisfy personal need.  Jesus counters with Scripture: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Round 2: Jump off the pinnacle of the Temple. Jesus’ Scriptural response again: “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test”.  Round 3: worship Satan to get power with glory, but without the cross. Jesus responds: “You shall worship the LORD your God and Him only shall you serve.”  Every one of these temptations was designed to derail Christ’s mission to save the world. Today let’s focus on #2. 

In Jesus’ time, the Temple of the LORD stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the highest place in the city.  Built on a foundation of immovable stone that still stands today, it rose 135 feet above the plane.  When the devil took Jesus here, it was to have a high enough position to ensure death if He caved, if He would throw Himself off the Temple to see if the angels would rescue Him.  Crafty little demon even uses Scripture to convince Jesus that this is okay.  But Jesus knows it is a trick, and knows that if He completes suicide, if He dies like this, the plan of salvation dies too.  Christ’s mission, His contribution to the world, is to die for our sins, at the right time, in the right way.  So Jesus passes; He chooses, as He does so many times in His lifetime, to fulfill His mission in God’s way and in God’s time.

Are we any different?  Does Satan wait until we are strong to tempt us? No, never.  And when he comes to us with the temptation to end it all, to complete suicide, it is so that we won’t do our mission for God either, it is so we will never make our contribution for God’s Kingdom.  The devil wants us to cut our lives short so that we never share the love of Christ, never share the good news of salvation, never find our calling and use our gifts, never live our lives out in grace.  Because Christ died for us, we have the blessing of living for Him.  So if the devil comes at you with this particular temptation – to complete suicide – remember two things: Satan wouldn’t be trying this on with you if you weren’t vulnerable, so get some help to find your strength; secondly, Satan wants to stop your mission too, so don’t deny the world the awesome contribution of your mission in Christ.

At her recent book signing, author and speaker Cathy Fyock signed her book to me: “Make your mark!”  This is what we are called to do, to live our lives out fully and make our mark for Christ. After all, He made His mark for us, on the palms of His hands.  Can we do any less for Him?  

Notes: Matthew 4:1-11; Deuteronomy 8:3; 6:16; 6:13; Photo credit: Greg Stone, Jerusalem, model of the Second Temple.