Beyond Self

"Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress. Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer."
Psalms 17:3‭-‬4.

Are we purposed to do the right thing? If tested, will we live by every Word which comes from the mouth of God? Or are we going astray, on the path of the destroyer (kind of like a little red riding hood lost in the woods scenario!)?

In this passage of chapters, Jesus Himself combats Satan's temptations by doing exactly what God said: living by the Word. Remember Eve in the garden? She fell victim to temptation for this number 1 reason: the inability to state God's Word for what it truly was. Jesus did it right & showed us the way:

#1: Hunger

"And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Matthew 4:3‭-‬4. It's easy to sometimes give into our appetite. Remember Esau? He gave up his sacred birthright for some stew from Jacob! But look how Jesus reacts here: the strongest tool we have against temptation is God's Word! When we go beyond sin, we go beyond self and human instinct! With God, it's possible!

#2: Questioning God's Protection

"And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."
Matthew 4:6‭-‬7. We cannot provoke God! He's always there for us no matter what. In this case, God did not protect from falling, He protected from temptation!

#3: Pride

"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Matthew 4:8‭-‬10. The devil told Jesus He could have everything. But why is this bad? Because the condition was giving up His authority. Acknowledging someone or something else higher than God. Let us never give that power to the devil! He has no power unless we let him in through temptation!

"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." Matthew 4:23.

The worst disease Jesus healed was the sickness of self. The sickness of sin. And that's why we need to go beyond self! We cannot break through to God's best if we're stuck serving our basic fleshly desires all the time. While it's not bad to have desires, it's also bad to have imbalance and backwards priorities! We need to put God first to live the most pleasant life. We have to be like Him. That's why Jesus gave us the Beatitudes!

Matthew 5:3-11 gives us this list of Beatitudes, basically, ways we can BE like Christ! I encourage a read of the full list, but some examples are:

"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." Matthew 5:5‭-‬6.

These may look familiar! Remember the temptation of Jesus? Rather than respond in pride, we need to be meek, like Jesus! Rather than hungering & thirsting after the physical food, we need to to hunger & thirst after righteousness & spiritual nourishment!

Let's go beyond ourselves today and seek God's purpose for our lives. He wants to do great things in you and your family!