"All this I will give you," he said,
"if you will bow down and worship me."
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan!
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan!
For it is written:
'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' "
Matthew 4: 9-10
Matthew 4: 9-10
We learnt in the last post, the Lord is MOST WORTHY OF OUR PRAISE. Jesus is MOST WORTHY of our worship, yet at the same time He demostrated true worship for us in the flesh. The worshiped became the worshiper for a brief moment in time when he came to this world as the incarnate God. He's our key to how worship ought to work.
His lesson in human worship begins for us in His temptation. Satan, the enemy of anything and anyone who honours God instead of him, waved his withered hand toward all the kingdom of the world and promised them to Jesus in exchange for the Son's worship. It was a monumental request for Jesus to flip the switch of our universe so that all worship would flow in the opposite direction from it's true course. If the Son had worshiped the rebel, the tide would have turned. God would have given up His place as rightful Lord.
But that's a temptation we're faced with daily. Our sinful flesh and our number one adversary try to distract us, to distort our motives and our vision, and to get us to tell a monumental lie. A corrupted world, still firmly gripped by the chief rebel, still waves it's kingdoms in front of us and tells us we can have them - at least intriguing and provocative pieces of them. A little misplaced ambition here, a little greed and lust there, and suddenly we're lying about worthiness of God. We're worshiping the unworthy. We've tried to flip the switch ourselves because we want the current of the universe to run in the direction of our cravings.
It won't work. Jesus is our model. He knew up front that the kingdoms of the world were a pitiful reward for forsaking the true God. That thought has to permeate our thinking so that our response in temptation is always an automatic reflection of verse 10: "Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only."
His lesson in human worship begins for us in His temptation. Satan, the enemy of anything and anyone who honours God instead of him, waved his withered hand toward all the kingdom of the world and promised them to Jesus in exchange for the Son's worship. It was a monumental request for Jesus to flip the switch of our universe so that all worship would flow in the opposite direction from it's true course. If the Son had worshiped the rebel, the tide would have turned. God would have given up His place as rightful Lord.
But that's a temptation we're faced with daily. Our sinful flesh and our number one adversary try to distract us, to distort our motives and our vision, and to get us to tell a monumental lie. A corrupted world, still firmly gripped by the chief rebel, still waves it's kingdoms in front of us and tells us we can have them - at least intriguing and provocative pieces of them. A little misplaced ambition here, a little greed and lust there, and suddenly we're lying about worthiness of God. We're worshiping the unworthy. We've tried to flip the switch ourselves because we want the current of the universe to run in the direction of our cravings.It won't work. Jesus is our model. He knew up front that the kingdoms of the world were a pitiful reward for forsaking the true God. That thought has to permeate our thinking so that our response in temptation is always an automatic reflection of verse 10: "Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only."
(An extract from Worship The King - by Chris Tiegreen)
Have A Victorious Week!
TPWC
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