Week 1: Temptation of God
October 1 Read Matthew 4:7
Jesus said, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”
Temptation… did you ever imagine that it affected God? Well, it did. God came to the earth in the form of His Son, Jesus, and the devil tried several times to tempt Him.
Now here’s the deal… if God Himself knows and understands temptation, doesn’t He surely understand how it affects us? Most certainly, He knows how hard it is to resist. But the fact is that He did resist. Jesus did not give in to the temptations of the devil, and if we want to be like Him, we have to do our best to resist, also.
Pray that God will give you strength to avoid and resist temptation, and that He will forgive you for the times when you may have given in. He knows what it’s like, and He will be ready and waiting to answer you.
October 2 Read Psalms 78:18-20
And they tested God in their heart by asking for the food of their fancy. Yes, they spoke against God: They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Behold, He struck the rock, so that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can He give bread also? Can He provide meat for His people.”
Have you ever tried to tempt God? Have you ever wanted Him to do something for you, and in order to “test” Him, you said, “God, if you are truly God, make this or that happen for me.”
If you have done this, you are not alone, but think about this. How do you like it when someone tries to use trick you into something? How do you feel when someone says something to you like, “If you are as cool as you say you are, you’ll do this or that.”? It’s much the same thing with God. Tempting him to help you or do something for you just to prove Who He is will never work. God knows His power, and He wants you to know it, too – by faith, not by yielding to temptation.
October 3 Read Psalms 78:21-25
Therefore the Lord heard this and was furious; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His salvation. Yet He had commanded the clouds above, and opened the doors of heaven, had rained down manna on them to eat, and given them the bread of heaven, men ate angels’ food; He sent them food to the full.
Think about this. God has given us so much and blessed us far beyond what we can ever comprehend. Yet, quite often, we want to ask Him to prove Himself to us again. How do we do this? We bargain, we plead, we beg for Him to help us or to show his power and his glory by doing these things for us.
God doesn’t mind giving us things and meeting our needs. But, He wants us to ask Him in faith and humility, not because we “expect” it or demand it. His gifts cannot be demanded or threatened out of Him. He cannot be tempted to comply just to please us. Instead, we must seek to please Him, and to humbly request that He meet our needs each day.
October 4 Read Psalms 78:26-33
He caused an east wind to blow in the heavens; and by His power He brought in the south wind. He also rained meat on them like the dust, feathered fowl like the sand of the seas; and He let them fall in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings, so they ate and were filled, for He gave them their own desire. They were not deprived of their craving; but while their food was still in their mouths, the wrath of God came against them, and slew the stoutest of them, and struck down the choice men of Israel. In spite of this they still sinned, and did not believe in His wondrous works. Therefore their days He consumed in futility, and their years in fear.
There used to be a margarine commercial in which a lady who was supposed to be Mother Nature tasted the margarine and thought it was pure butter. She was pleased with the “butter” until she discovered it was just very, very tasty margarine. She was not amused at being tricked, and the punch line to the commercial was “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!”
In some ways, that’s what happened in this Scripture passage. God was not fooled, but he was mocked and denied. He gave the Israelites everything they needed – AND wanted. He gave them so much food that birds literally fell from the air and covered the ground. Yet they refused to follow Him, to repent, and to obey. So, the passage says that God was very angered, and he let them have it! He made them angry, unsuccessful, and in some cases, He killed them.
Does this mean God will kill you or make your life miserable if you don’t follow Him, or if you tempt Him with your prayers and actions? Probably not. But it does show His power, and also His desire to be respected and revered. In may not be nice to fool Mother Nature, but it is a sin to try to fool God, and simply a waste of your time and energy.
October 5 Read Psalms 78:34-39
And when He slew them, then they sought Him; and they returned and sought earnestly for God. Then they remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High God their Redeemer. Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth, and they lied to Him with their tongue; for their heart was not steadfast with Him, nor were they faithful in His covenant. But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath; for He remembered that they were but flesh, a breath that passes away and does not come again.
WOW…this is pretty powerful stuff! When God got angry, the people repented and started claiming Him as their God, and praising Him. But they still lived a sinful life. In other words, they spoke one thing, and lived another. Yet, God realized that they were mere humans, and He forgave them.
Have you ever done this? Have you ever claimed to be a Christian, come to church, prayed, sung the hymns, and then gone out and lived the life of a sinner? All of us have at one time or another. The goal is to deepen and strengthen your daily walk with Christ, so that the temptations to sin lesson or are easier to resist, and the desire to walk with God and to glorify Him every minute of every day grows stronger.
October 6 Read Psalms 78:40-56
How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert! Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power: the day when He redeemed them from the enemy, when He worked His signs in Egypt, and His wonders in the field of Zoan; turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, that they could not drink. He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them. He also gave their crops to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.
He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with frost. He also gave up their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to fiery lightning. He cast on them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, by sending angels of destruction among them. He mad a path for His anger; He did not spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the plague, and destroyed all the firstborn in Egypt, the first of their strength in the tents of Ham.
But He made His own people go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock; and He led them on safely, so that they did not fear; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. And He brought them to His holy border, this mountain which His right hand had acquired.
He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them an inheritance by survey and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents. Yet they tested and provoked the Most High God and did not keep His testimonies.
We are just like these people. God gives and gives to us, and we still test Him, provoke him, and do not keep His commandments. Why on earth would he continue to bless us? Because He is God, and He loves us, and He knows we are humans who are weak and sinful.
But, just because God forgives us doesn’t give us license to test His generosity… to tempt Him, so to speak. It should be our goal to live for Him, to serve Him in every way possible, and to follow His commandments and live by His word. We should aim to please God at every turn – not because we fear His wrath, but because we love Him in return.
October 7 Read Hebrews 3:7-11
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and say My words forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
When you are tempted to do things you shouldn’t, do you ever feel that you hear “a little Voice” telling you “Don’t do this!”? Do you think that Voice is from God? How do you react to this Voice?
This passage tells us that Jesus was tested over and over, and He didn’t like this. Perhaps one of the ways He was tested – and still is today – is that He speaks to us and gives us guidance, and we ignore Him. He doesn’t like this, and over time, if we repeatedly ignore His voice, He will eventually pull away from us and become angry. Ignoring God is not cool, and it can lead to unbelief in Him, disrespect of Him, and denial of Him as the central focus of your life. And that can lead to eternal death.
So the next time you hear a “voice” – ask yourself, “Which voice am I hearing – my own, or that of God?” and make your next move accordingly.
©Debbie Robus 2004
