Tag: temptation

The Whole Heart

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

2 Chronicles 25

By Chuck Griffin

Have you ever been in a spiritually good place, feeling “right with God,” and then suddenly found yourself sinning mightily?

Those who have experienced such behavior know the sudden turn can be shocking and confusing. The author of 2 Chronicles repeatedly tells us stories of leaders who make such sudden wrong turns.

In chapter 25, we find Amaziah presented as one of the more successful kings over Judah, at least to a point. Early in his reign, he seems to follow God’s law scrupulously. When he goes to war against the Edomites, God tells him to send home the mercenaries he has hired to supplement his army, assuring the king he will have victory without such unsavory assistance.

And victory is Amaziah’s. That’s what makes his next act so odd.

Rather than giving thanks to the God who has given him assurances through prophets and victory on the battlefield, he carries home the idols of his defeated enemy and begins to worship them.

God, of course, expresses anger, speaking through a prophet. But even then, Amaziah is unrepentant, threatening the prophet with death. Amaziah eventually falls into the hands of his enemies and dies as the result of a conspiracy, all a result of divine displeasure.

We do receive an early clue to Amaziah’s problem in 25:2. We’re told that Amaziah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not with a whole heart.”

In other words, while part of Amaziah loved and followed God, there were dark places where he had not allowed God to penetrate. Therein lay the problematic parts of his personality.

Self-righteous anger may have been one of Amaziah’s serious problems. On their way home, the mercenaries he had dismissed looted parts of Judah, doing a lot of damage.

Perhaps Amaziah blamed God for allowing such a thing to happen. If so, Amaziah failed to see that the mercenaries’ behavior was more evidence that they were not the kind of people to be aligned with a godly mission, and that he had made a serious mistake in hiring them.

It also was a tradition in the Ancient Near East to take home the gods of a defeated people, absorbing them into the conqueror’s religious traditions. It may be that Amaziah forgot the special nature of the God over Judah, the God who declared himself One and Only. If so, Amaziah is simply another example of the folly of blending worldliness with godliness.

We again see how the Old Testament points us toward the New Testament. Only one with a whole and holy heart, Jesus Christ, could make it possible for the darkest parts of the human heart to be filled with light.

Dear Lord,when we experience sudden, surprising failure like Amaziah’s, search us deeply and show us what we still keep hidden. And of course, help us to hear your guidance and make the changes we need to make. Amen.

The Great Sympathizer

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Hebrews 4:14-16 (NRSV)

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Just recently my online small group spent some time discussing the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. We were struck by how easily we could relate to the temptations Satan put before our savior.

Yes, the magnitude of what it took to tempt one who is divine is astonishing. After 40 days of fasting, Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread. He was tempted to fling himself from the pinnacle of the temple and demonstrate his ties to heaven, an act certain to inspire a following. And he was offered a world under his dominion, if only he would place himself below Satan in the grand scheme of the universe.

When we boil those temptations down, however, we see how they appeal to basic human desires for immediate gratification, recognition and control. Satan simply offers us less because he knows how easy it is to draw mere humans toward defeat and death.

The author of Hebrews reminds us that the priest who represents us in heaven, Jesus, is deeply sympathetic toward our plight. He has felt our desires. And while Jesus did not succumb to those desires, he certainly understands how fragile humans can easily do so, making our circumstances even worse.

Jesus went to the cross out of love for us, and even after the terrible pain from bearing the weight of every sin ever committed, he continues to love us. He stands there in the heavenly temple, ready to make us holy despite our sins.

We certainly respect what Jesus has done. Our hearts should be filled with gratitude, and there is no need for cringing fear when the time comes to approach Christ in heaven. He has lived among us and understands our circumstances.

Lord, we thank you for the sacrifice making our forgiveness and restoration to God possible. As you represent us in heaven, may we be so bold as to speak for you on earth. Amen.

One of Us

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Important Link ~ Jesus Is Tempted: Matthew 4:1-11

It is the season of Lent, and this story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness tells us much about how to put sin behind us and grow spiritually, seeking holy alignment with God.

Not that Jesus, who was in a mysterious way fully divine and fully human, had sin in his life. He did have the potential to sin; he simply did not succumb to temptation, as we so often do as frail humans.

Just before the temptation story in Matthew, the Father in Heaven affirmed Jesus’ sonship at his baptism. In our baptisms, we become children of Father God, siblings of the Savior Son. As the author of Hebrews notes, “The one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”

Think of baptism as God lifting up his children, gazing upon them and claiming them as his own. God also kneels down with his children. Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness was God, through Jesus’ eyes, seeing life from our level.

And what a painful place the wilderness can be. When I read this story, I imagine Jesus walking about in the chalky, sun-baked wilderness, hungrily praying about everything that draws humans away from God.

We hear specifically the lures old Satan dangled before Jesus: You know you’re hungry; make bread from stones. Throw yourself from the highest point of the temple; angels will save you. Bow down to me and I’ll let you rule the world!

Jesus was ready, though, and I’m reminded of our need to find time apart for fasting, meditation and prayer. Folks, we’re really not very good at these disciplines in our culture. It is as if our goal is to fill every moment with something to tingle the ears or penetrate the eyes, as if time spent in unstimulated silence is somehow wasted.

We fail to do what Jesus did. We fail to go without, so we fail to remember our fragility and dependence. That’s the real purpose of fasting. The act helps us become more conscious of the voids within us, deep depressions in the soul we too often try to fill with excesses in eating, sex, recreation or other diversions.

Having consumed the wrong kind of sustenance and thinking we are satisfied, we then fail to gather our strength through direct communion with God.

I don’t talk about our failures to make us despair, however. No, I point them out so we can, with God’s help, overcome them and be amazed at all that God wants to do for us!

Never forget that in the midst of what seemed like vacant, dry wasteland, a place of constant danger, there were angels ready to tend to our sibling savior. Do you not think they will do the same for us, his little brothers and sisters in the family of God?

Lord, your Bible stories in the Lenten season remind us of sin. But more importantly, they remind us of the joy and power in a life redeemed from sin, a life connected to eternity by Jesus Christ. Help us to make and hold on to that connection. Amen.