Spiritual Blindness

“The Lord said, “These people claim to worship me, but their words are meaningless, and their hearts are somewhere else.  Their religion is nothing but human rules and traditions, which they have simply memorized.  So I will startle them with one unexpected blow after another.  Those who are wise will turn out to be fools, and all their cleverness will be useless”.

 Those who try to hide their plans from the Lord are doomed! They carry out their schemes in secret and think no one will see them or know what they are doing.” Isaiah  29:13-15  GNT

The Israelites knew how to talk the spiritual talk, but their hearts were far from God. 

You cannot always tell a person’s heart by what they say. You cannot always tell a person’s heart by what they do.  Only God really knows the heart, the closest we can come is by looking at the whole of their life----not just what they say or do, and especially not only at how they act at church or among Christians.

Jesus said, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34).  This is true because people can draw near to God with their mouths and honor the Lord with their lips and their hearts can still be far from God.  Of course, their speech and actions will betray them at one time or another----but just maybe never at church!

This manner of talking the talk, but not having the heart, did not end in Isaiah’s day.   Jesus quoted this passage from Isaiah when He rebuked the religious leaders of His day for their hypocrisy (Matt. 15:7-9, Mark 7:6-7).  It did not end in Jesus’ day either!

How did their hearts get far from God?   God does not move away from His people; they removed their hearts from Him.

Their fear toward Him is taught by the commandment of men.  They hearts did not respond to God, but only to man.

Isaiah wrote, the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, because Jerusalem’s pride had led them into spiritual blindness, sleep, drunkenness, illiteracy and hypocrisy, God will destroy the wisdom of their wise men.  Their wise men promoted the pride that led to all these evils.

Isaiah calls this a marvelous work and a wonder, for God to reject the wisdom of man and to display His wisdom.  Paul was also amazed at the “wisdom” of man, and how it compared to the “foolishness” of God: “In His wisdom, He did not allow man to come to know Him through the wisdom of this world.  It pleased God to save men from the punishment of their sins through preaching the Good News.  This preaching sounds foolish.  The Jews are looking for something special to see. The Greek people are looking for the answer in wisdom.   But we preach that Christ died on a cross to save them from their sins.  These words are hard for the Jews to listen to. The Greek people think it is foolish.   Christ is the power and wisdom of God to those who are chosen to be saved from the punishment of sin for both Jews and Greeks.   God’s plan looked foolish to men, but it is wiser than the best plans of men. God’s plan which may look weak is stronger than the strongest plans of men”.

Who sees us?  In their false wisdom, the proud people of Israel thought they could hide their thoughts and deeds from the Lord.  They thought they could hide from the Lord, and that they had Him all figured out.   But the Lord has them all figured out and they really do not know God at all.

“They come and sit in front of you as My people, and listen to the words you say. But they do not do them.  With their mouth they speak of love, but their hearts are full of sinful desire”.    Ezek. 33:31 NLV

Victory in the Power of the Holy Spirit

“Early in the morning on the first day of the week, the women went to the grave taking the spices they had made ready.  They found the stone had been pushed away from the grave.  They went in but they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

While they wondered about what had happened, they saw two men standing by them in shining clothes.   They were very much afraid and got down with their faces to the ground.  The men said to them, “Why do you look for the living One among those who are dead?  He is not here. He is risen.  Do you not remember what He said to you when He was yet in Galilee?  He said, ‘The Son of Man must be given over into the hands of sinful men.  He must be nailed to a cross.  He will rise again three days later.’”  Luke 24:1-7 NLV

Jesus dedicated His all, body, soul and spirit to God His Father.  After His baptism the Holy Spirit came from heaven to rest upon Him.

He entered the temptation of His wilderness experience filled with the Holy Spirit.   He came out of the wilderness in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Have you ever stopped to think about the test Jesus went through?   What if  He had weakened to the point of giving up, quitting?

He would have been a blemished Lamb.   Just one failed test would have rendered His consecration valueless.

Praise God, Jesus allowed the Holy Spirit control of His body and soul.  He came through the wilderness victorious as the pure, spotless Lamb of God. He endured the temptations, battles and hardships with faith in God.

He believed God would never leave Him nor forsake Him. He believed God would not allow Him to be tested beyond what He could endure.

When Jesus went into the wilderness He had the Holy Spirit, but after He went through the testing in the wilderness, the Holy Spirit had Jesus. 

Jesus had surrendered every fiber of His being to the Holy Spirit therefore, the Holy Spirit had Him.

 Each child of God has the Holy Spirit in them to a degree, but after they have gone through the wilderness with God and completely surrendered the Holy Spirit has them.

When Jesus came out of the wilderness He was ready to go out and demonstrate what Christianity is.

“……. He went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news (Gospel) of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every weakness and infirmity among the people”.  Matt. 4:23  AMP

Have you consecrated yourself to God?

Are you willing to go through the wilderness experience and allow the Holy Spirit to have you?

“Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh…..”   Hebrews 10:19-20  NKJV

Be An Overcomer

“Then the devil brought him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  He said, “I’ll give you all these if you bow down and worship me.”

Jesus responded, “Go away, Satan, because it’s written, You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”   The devil left him, and angels came and took care of him”.     Matthew 4:8-11  CEB

 When Jesus stood in the waters of Jordan after being baptized the glory of God came down from heaven and rested upon Him.

The Spirit of God came down from heaven in fullness out of the heart of God.

Jesus dedicated His all to His Father.  The result of that was the Holy Spirit descended upon Him and He was filled with the Spirit of God to fullness---more than enough!

Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. 

 Why?   To be tested.   To see whether He was going to be an overcomer or not; to see whether He meant what He said.  He was tested to see if He meant His consecration or not.

Satan was there waiting to tempt Him in every way. He tried to get Jesus to give up and quit.   You can almost hear Satan asking Jesus, “Did you really mean you have consecrated yourself?   Did you mean it when you gave your body and soul to God that it was forever?”

The same temptations and battles come against us when we repent and consecrate ourselves to God.   Right away Satan comes against us and trouble is knocking at our door.

Satan knows he has to come against us to try everything he can to get us off focus and give up.   If he can make us weary from the battle, we will entertain the thought of quitting.

John 10:10(a) tells us that Satan has come to kill, steal and destroy …….he will not stop trying.

Most people truly mean their declaration of consecration but when hardships, struggles and temptations come they give in and forget the price Jesus paid for them.

For Jesus consecration meant forever!  We, too, must get the “forever” in our soul and spirit.

There is NO turning back, NO quitting and NO compromise!

Set Apart

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.  For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry.

During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”

But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say,

‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”   Matt. 4:1-4 NLT

Most of the time we have our eyes so fixed on the fact that Jesus was the Son of God that we lose sight of the fact that He was also a man just like us.

All the body and soul battles that man has to deal with are the same battles that Jesus dealt with.

It appears that many Christians, today, try to excuse their sins on the basis that Jesus was God and He did not have the same temptations, hunger or emotions.

Jesus was just as much a man as we are.  He had to meet every challenge of the body and soul, just as you and I have to meet them.

Jesus willed----determined to do God’s will and to know God’s will.

There are two phases we must face to enter into the will of God.

First, is to surrender our will to do the will of God.

Secondly, is recognizing yourself as God’s child and you are His servant.

The secret to Jesus’ life was He dedicated Himself to God.

He dedicated Himself to do the will of His Father, not His own will.

Jesus dedicated and consecrated Himself to God, body, soul, and spirit.

Temptation of Emotions

“Keep your mind clear, and be alert.   Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion as he looks for someone to devour”.   I Peter 5:8 GW

The final test of Jesus’ commitment to His Father’s will took place on Calvary. 

“Come down from the cross!” (Matt. 27:40) was a challenge uttered by the chief priests, soldiers and people; but behind it was Satan himself.   Having failed to entice Jesus through His body, ego and mind, Satan tried to break His will by means of His emotions.

The emotional strain of the cross was staggering.  The main ingredient was abandonment.

The abandonment of Jesus was complete----people, disciples and even though for a brief time, His Father.  At that point, when His emotions were at their strained peak, Satan whispered to Him, “Everyone’s against you; what’s the use?   You have taken enough; end all this business by a quick stroke of power and come down from that cross of pain.  Why should you suffer anymore?”

That was the most deceitful of all Satan’s tactics, for then he was in the role of sympathizer, reliever and deliverer.  How often Satan’s temptations come in the guise of deliverance!

How quickly he can break our will by leading us to self-pity.   But Jesus saw through the trickery; He realized He could not spare Himself and still save others.  He refused to abandon His commitment; He would not renege on His Father’s will and so He triumphed!   Victory!

We must realize that we are always vulnerable emotionally to Satan. 

Emotions will fluctuate; but if our commitment to God is firm and determined, they will stay in balance.

“Lord, help us not to be distracted by our fluctuating emotions.”

“Of course we are human, but we don’t fight like humans.  The weapons we use in our fight are not made by humans.  Rather, they are powerful weapons from God. With them we destroy people’s defenses, that is, their arguments and all their intellectual arrogance that oppose the knowledge of God.   We take every thought captive so that it is obedient to Christ”.     II Cor. 10:3-5  GW

Temptations of the Mind

“Such men are not true apostles but are workers who lie.  They change themselves to look like apostles of Christ.   This does not surprise us.  Even Satan changes himself to look like an angel of light”.    II Cor. 11:13-14 NCV

The third way in which Satan tried to break Jesus’ determination to serve His Father was by means of the mind.

Having failed to dislodge Jesus by appealing to His body and ego, he then attempted to loosen the foundations of His rationality.   That occurred in Gethsemane.

There Jesus was faced with the full foresight of the cross and all He would have to bear.   What He would have to endure, Jesus saw, was a contradiction; He who knew no sin would have to become sin (II Cor. 5:21).

The pressure of having to become what He hated was an almost intolerable burden for the Son of Man.

He exhibited all the symptoms of the pressure; groaning, tears, sweat and inward agony.  His mind was storm-tossed, swept between two contradictory principles.

Three times He had to press in close to the Father in prayer, seeking help and all the while Satan hoped His mind would snap, leaving Him broken and helpless.

But again, Jesus went back to His determination to do His Father’s will, regardless of how contradictory it appeared.

“Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42 KJV).

Victory came, then peace, when His will held firm before the storm.

Satan knows very well how we can be destroyed through the shaking of our mind.

Being called “crazy” was one of the criticisms Paul had to face (Acts 26:24, II Cor. 5:13).   The protection of the mind does not come by trying to reason things out, but by being willing and determined to stay on course with God and letting Him unravel the problems we face as He chooses.

“Thy will be done” (Matt. 26:42) is more than a formal prayer; it is mental therapy that Satan cannot undo.

If we keep our will intact, God will give us the spirit of “power….love, and ….a sound mind” (II Tim. 1:7).

“God’s Word is living and powerful.  It is sharper than a sword that cuts both ways. It cuts straight into where the soul and spirit meet and it divides them.  It cuts into the joints and bones.  It tells what the heart is thinking about and what it wants to do”.    Hebrews 4:12 NLV

Ego Temptation

“Be clearheaded.   Keep alert.  Your accuser, the devil, is on the prowl like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”.  I Peter 5:8  CEB

Once Jesus had publicly determined to do His Father’s will Satan was after Him relentlessly.

Satan failed to shake Jesus’ grip on His commitment through the needs of the body, so he tried another tactic.   He attacked the needs of the ego.

After Jesus’ astonishing ministry of teaching, healing and miracles, the multitudes wanted to make Him king (John 6:15).  Here it was----the kingdom, the goal of the Father---handed to Him on a ‘silver platter’.

But Jesus recognized the snake behind it and turned down the offer.   He was strong enough to resist the appeal of popularity, the gratification of His ego.

Nothing turns the head so quickly or softens the will as much as the appeal and clamor of the crowd.   Jesus did not allow Satan to feed His ego, which would have led to catastrophe; rather, He submerged His ego in the Father’s will, which led to triumph!  That is how we must walk.

Our ego is more fragile than our body.   If Satan cannot break our will by tempting our body, he will try to break it by tempting our ego.

King David was deceived both ways; first through the sexual needs of the body, which resulted in adultery (II Sam. 11); and then through the cravings of pride, which resulted in taking a census of the people (II Sam. 24).   What sad, painful outcomes from both!

Jesus defeated the ego temptation by slipping away quietly and communing with His Father, where He strengthened Himself.   So must we, again and again as often as Satan baits us, for our will is strengthened only as we carefully cultivate it in the presence of our heavenly Father.

To “pray at all times in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18) is the way to “put on the full armor of God” and then be able “to stand firm against the schemes of the devil”. (Eph. 6:11)

“They won the victory over him because of the blood of the lamb
and the word of their testimony.
They didn’t love their life so much that they refused to give it up”. Rev. 12:11 GW