As soon as Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, the Holy Ghost fell upon Jesus like a dove. At that same moment, God said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Afterwards, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights without food or water. At the end of the 40 days, Satan came to tempt Jesus while He was weak and weary.
If Satan had the audacity to tempt Jesus Christ, he has no problem tempting you each and every day. In fact, the biggest weapon Satan has to steal, kill and to destroy is his use of temptations. He uses the mighty temptations of himself, our flesh and the world to tempt us to sin.
Everyone has been tempted and everyone has succumbed to temptations. The Word of God gives us some very important truths about these mighty temptations.
First of all, I Corinthians 10:13 tells us, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.” In other words, you are not the only one who has suffered while dealing with temptations. As a result, there is no need to have a pity-party when temptations hit you. That is the time to call on Jesus because 2 Peter 2:9 says, “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations…” And how does he do it? Again I Corinthians 10:13 tells us how when it says, ….[the Lord] “will not permit you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape.”
In reality the mighty temptations are not the problem. The problem is not recognizing the way to escape and/or not taking the way to escape that the Lord has provided with the temptation. You see, temptations are greatest in duration and in intensity when we do not accept the easy way out. We can’t ponder it. We cannot think about it. We must accept and take it immediately.
As I stated earlier, at the first sign of temptation we must immediately call on Jesus. At this very moment, Jesus Christ is sitting at the right hand of God as our High Priest, Intercessor and Advocate. But we must never forget that before He took that position, Jesus first partook of man’s character, man’s flesh and man’s temptations. That is why the Bible says in Hebrews 4:15 that Jesus was tempted in all points like man, but he never succumb or sinned.
When we call on Jesus during temptations, He is the only one who is able to fully understand what we are going through and how we feel. He is able to do so because He has gone through every one of them and He has experienced every feeling. And He is lovingly eager to show us the way of escape.
But let’s be honest here. None of you reading this article have always taken the easy way out provided by the Lord. All of us, at one time or another have failed and sinned. I’m not talking about unbelievers; I am specifically talking about believers.
When we as believers, do fail, that is when we can rely on Christ’s position as our High Priest, Advocate and Intercessor. By faith, according to Hebrews 4:15, we must come boldly to the throne of grace, God’s Throne, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in a time of need. That is why we have such a great salvation. It allows any sinner to come boldly before and in the presence of a Holy God.
Perhaps some of you have not found such grace and mercy because you are spending too much time coming boldly to the altar of your local church and not boldly to God’s Throne in a private and intimate way…for the Just must walk by faith and not by sight.