Christ Triumphant - A Devotional by E.G. White
Jesus Our Example On How To Overcome Satan |
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Today's Text:
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. 2 Timothy 3:16, 17
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The Message:
The great leading temptations wherewith we would be beset, Christ met and overcame in the wilderness. His coming off victor over appetite, presumption, and the world shows how we may overcome. Satan has overcome his millions in tempting the appetite and leading people to give up to presumptuous sins. There are many who profess to be followers of Christ, claiming by their faith to be enlisted in the warfare against all evil in their nature, yet who, with hardly a thought, plunge into scenes of temptation that would require a miracle to bring them forth unsullied. Meditation and prayer would have preserved them and led them to shun the dangerous positions in which they have placed themselves, and that give Satan the advantage over them.
The promises of God are not for us to claim rashly, to protect us while we rush on recklessly into danger, violating the laws of nature, or disregarding prudence and the judgment God has given us to use. This would not be genuine faith but presumption. The thrones and kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, were presented to Christ. Never will we have temptations as strong as those that assailed Him. But Satan comes to us with worldly honor, wealth, and the pleasures of life. These temptations are varied to meet people of every rank and degree, tempting them away from God to serve themselves more than their Creator. "All these things will I give thee," said Satan to Christ. "All these things will I give thee," says Satan to us. "All this money, this land, all this power, this honor, and these riches, will I give thee," and we are charmed, deceived, and treacherously allured on to our ruin. If we give ourselves up to worldliness of heart and of life, Satan is satisfied. The Saviour overcame the wily foe, showing us how we may overcome. He has left us His example, to repel Satan with Scripture. He might have had recourse to His own divine power and used His own words, but His example would not then have been as useful to us. Christ used only Scripture. How important that the Word of God be thoroughly studied and followed, that in case of emergency we may be "throughly furnished unto all good works" and especially fortified to meet the wily foe.-Letter 1a, 1872. |
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Commentary:
My friend, the life that Christ lived may be our lives as well. He not only gives us His example, but also the power to overcome every temptation of Satan. That power comes from the indwelling of His Spirit that leads us to all truth and in time of need, will bring to our remembrance the words of Scripture by which we may overcome temptation. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), and then He said "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:" (John 16:13). In this He was saying to His disciples that He would come to them by His Spirit and bring the words of truth to them.
If we are to overcome sin in our lives we must have the Spirit of Christ living within us, for He said "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me." (John 15:4). "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (John 15:7). Jesus again said "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63). Jesus lives within us by His Spirit and He is imparted in our lives by the words of Scripture.
Satan well knows that those whom he can get to neglect prayer and the searching of the Scriptures, will be overcome by his devices, therefore he does all that he can to occupy our minds with worldly pleasures and pursuits that we will neglect to search the scriptures that Christ may be revealed to us, and His Spirit may dwell within us.
My friend, the Holy Spirit is not the Spirit of another being, but is the Spirit of Christ that is to dwell within us, and it is by His Spirit that we may overcome all temptation. The trinity is a false doctrine and imparts the spirit of another being in place of the Spirit of Christ. By doing this he separates us from God, while at the same time deceiving us into believing that we are receiving the Spirit of God, but in fact we are receiving his unholy spirit.
May you look away from the false god of the trinity and look unto the One true God through His Son Jesus Christ, that He may abide in you today.
God bless,
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Video of the Week
Part 1 of 6, Daniel Mesa and others from Pioneer Health and Missions present a response to the trinitarian symposium held in the Central California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
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