The Devil’s Temptation of Me

The enemy attempts to embroil us in the despair of life. Why? Because if we’re wrapped up in the despair of life, we will have no energy for living it. Taking up power is the temptation.

The Devil’s Scheme Against Me

You might ask, “What is the devil’s part in our hardship?” Oh yes, there is such a scheme at hand. The enemy essentially says to us, “If you will but bow down and worship me, I will give you power over those horrible situations that hurt you.” This is the temptation of all of us, including even Christ. Jesus’ third temptation in the wilderness was to take up illegitimate power over His life. Satan said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here and the angels will catch you.” Satan knew what he was doing. If we succumb to this temptation, we’ll find ourselves leaving God and worshiping Satan. Not necessarily like a Satanist, but in more subtle ways.

When life hurts us, we will sometimes make a pact with the devil to survive it. We do this in order to become more powerful than those who actually had power to hurt us. And with this power grab we become even MORE evil than the evil that hurt us. This play for power over the pain in our lives is deadly and devastating.

Temptation of Illegitimate Power

To seize illegitimate power is to grasp hold of death. To enter the belief that God is not sovereign and that the devil has the upper hand over my life is to worship the enemy as god. We do tend to worship what we think has power, through involvement if nothing else.

The arrangement goes something like this. Satan says, “If you will but worship me, I will give you control.” If we enter into this temptation and arrangement, we are caught. The devil now has the power to torment us. And why? Because we thought we knew better than God. And quite frankly, thinking we know better than God is to worship Satan.

To want power over our situations is to worship Satan. This is why embracing God’s sovereignty is so important. When we worship power, we worship the devil who we think will give us the power. “He has to pony up, we made a deal after all, right?!” No, the ownership will be of us, not our situation.

Avoiding the Temptation

So how do we prevent this from happening? Yes is the answer. Yes to God, yes to my life, yes to His Will, and Yes to His sovereign choices. We don’t have to become a mindless doormat in this; my silence is not required, only my surrender. Our God has to be honored as God over our lives, and He must be thanked even for what I don’t understand. Both my thanks and honoring are to say yes to Him as God. And where my yes merges with God’s Yes, there the resurrected Life of the Son flows.

For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes and Amen”) ascends to God for His glory.
2 Corinthians 1:20 NLT