I wrote this last year, it pertains to theme song a friend sent: “wondering in my wandering”…, if we focus on God, then the devil can’t get a foothold. I was thinking about this as I looked at the dashed road dividing line on the highway… If we follow Jesus, walk on the line, narrow walking, then the devil will fall off the side and can’t get a foothold into our lives…
This is edited from August:
A BIBLE STUDY LESSON I APPRECIATE: JESUS SAID MAN CAN RESIST THE TEMPTATION, CAN RESIST THE DEVIL. MAN CAN RESIST.. IT DOESN’T TAKE ONLY A GOD TO RESIST, BUT IT TAKES MAN LISTENING TO GOD TO RESIST.
We are specifically told to learn from the schemes of the devil to know how to resist him, by LISTENING to the Lord, being filled by His Spirit, then crediting the Lord with direction and our prosperity. Time and time again the devil wants you to rely on your knowledge, not depend upon the Lord. If you depend upon yourself, you will NEVER be satisfied. If you depend upon the Lord, the devil gets no foothold, and eventually will even have a hard time bending your ear. The devil makes you question even God. Remember, The Lord provides everything, food and direction, as He provided them to the Israelites in Moses’s time and to us, and God gets the credit.
Jesus said to the Devil (and of course to us), that man should live “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. This was a direct quote from what was spoken to Moses. And Jesus being the Word, those are His Words. Jesus quoted often from Deuteronomy, written by Moses, the fifth book, of God’s Word.
Moses wrote: He [God] humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, [so] that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
If we cast our fears to the Lord, even in the midst of stress, we will catch onto what the Lord gives us as His direction, which is His Word. The more we read the Word, the more resources we have in our arsenal to resist the temptations, the more knowledge we have of His TRUTH.
It will eventually come down to us choosing the Lord or relying on ourselves to see us thru troubles and triumphs. Someone once said to me: “I wouldn’t want to be a sheep.” I wish then I had thought of this witty reply: “With a Shephard like Jesus, I wouldn’t want to be anything but His sheep in His Flock.”
Live by His Word. Step by step. Bite by bite. Breath by breath.
Amen
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Jesus and the devil
Matthew 4:1-11 (also in Luke 4)
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. 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.
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, 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.
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. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
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God speaking to Moses
Deuteronomy 8 NKJV
“Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you.
“Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.
“Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty rock; who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end— then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’
“And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.
Debbie Upper 