\u201cThen Jesus told him, \u201cGo away, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.\u201d \u00a0Matthew 4:10 CSB
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This verse comes at the end of Jesus\u2019 time in the wilderness. When Jesus is baptized and begins His ministry the first thing He does is be \u201cled by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil\u201d (Matthew 4:1 CSB). He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, Matthew tells us He was hungry (Matthew 4:2 CSB). That\u2019s when the \u201ctempter\u201d hits Him with his first attack: \u201cSon of God, tell these stones to become bread\u201d (Matthew 4:3 CSB). Jesus response: \u201cIt is written: Man must not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God\u201d (Matthew 4:4 CSB). Next Satan tried to get Jesus to throw Himself off of the temple, thinking if He\u2019s truly the Son of God, His angels will catch Him. Jesus\u2019 reply, \u201cDo not test the Lord your God\u201d (Matthew 4:7 CSB). Lastly, the Devil tries to get Jesus to worship him by offering Him the opportunity to rule over the earth. That\u2019s when Jesus has finally had enough of his shenanigans and tells him to get lost (Matthew 4:10 CSB).
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Any of the temptations that Jesus faced could become idols in our lives. Tim Keller, author and pastor describes idolatry this way: “Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry.” The Devil was trying to get anything to come before God in Jesus\u2019 life. He uses the same ploy on us. If we worship food more than God, it\u2019s an idol. If we worship our health and safety more than God, it\u2019s an idol. If we worship power more than God, it\u2019s an idol. And it is so easy to succumb too, it can be so subtle we don\u2019t even realize we\u2019re doing it.
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How can we know what we\u2019re worshiping? \u00a0A retired pastor I knew used this challenge to his people to help them know where their heart was: their checkbook and their calendar. \u00a0He used it often in his sermons. He would say, \u201cShow me your checkbook and your calendar, I\u2019ll tell you what your heart is worshiping.\u201d Where your money goes and where your time goes is where your heart goes as well. It\u2019s truly that simple. \u00a0God has given us a life to live, He\u2019s given us free will to live it anyway we want. It\u2019s up to us to put Him first, He\u2019s not going to force the issue. But it can be challenging, the Devil has been around a long time. He knows what he\u2019s doing and he does it well. \u00a0But have no fear, Jesus defeated him and so can we.
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Let\u2019s pray:
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Lord, Satan is annoying. \u00a0His ploys are annoying. Just as Jesus said, so do we, \u201cGo away Satan!” We don\u2019t have time for you. \u00a0Our hearts are centered on God, help us to keep them that way Lord. In You we place our hope and trust. You alone are our God, no other comes before you. (Matthew 4:10 CSB). \u00a0In Jesus name we pray. Amen
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\u201cThen Jesus told him, \u201cGo away, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.\u201d \u00a0Matthew 4:10 CSB This verse comes at the end of Jesus\u2019 time in the wilderness. When Jesus is baptized and begins His ministry the first thing He does is be \u201cled by the Spirit into… Continue reading SERVE ONLY HIM<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":924,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}