CHRISTFORMATION IN YOU MINISTRIES
My dear children for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. Galatians 4:19 (NIV translation)
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of Gaod, tell these stones to become bread. Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'[a]"Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'[c]" Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me. "Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'[d]" Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
With three temptations Satan targets the premature abortion of Christformation in you.
Introduction
In the four gospels, the word of God introduces Christ our Lord with the three temptations He went through in the wilderness. He was tempted the same way we are being tempted today but how He overcame them were of exemplary character.
God, the Father did not tempt Him. He allowed Satan, the deceiver, to tempt Christ His Son knowing beforehand how He would respond to temptations especially after He had fasted forty days and forty nights. Christ is the Firstborn of God, among many brothers. He is the perfect example we are to follow as God’s children. No other man or woman on earth or heaven could be compared to Him.
Christ, the Anointed One, shows us the way of obedience to our Heavenly Father. No man has obeyed the Father like Christ did on earth.
Though He was God’s own Son, He learned obedience to the Father on earth. Christ was sent to earth as the exact representation of the Father and He obeyed the One who sent him to be lowered among man. He was humiliated but yet He obeyed God, even the punishment of death on the cross!
God predestined us to be made into the likeness of Christ. Everyone from lambs and sheep to mini-shepherd, we are to be formed into His image. Primarily, the outcome of our relationship with Christ is determined by how we resist Satan and the worldly temptations he brings our way because this will hinder Christformation in us.
Christ the Overcomer has shown us how we could resist the evil one. It is God’s will for us to be an overcomer too, following Christ’s example. The Heavenly Father is pleased when we become the exact representation of Christ, His Son on earth, to all others on earth. He knows those who are His children, in whom Christ is being formed.
There are three temptations that stand out as Satan’s evil scheme to hinder and destroy Christformation in God’s own people. Christ showed us what they were and how to overcome them. Satan’s target on God’s called out and chosen ones are three things. The three very important characteristics of the divine nature of Christ in the life of a believer in Christ are; the word of God, the will of God and the work of God. Satan seeks to keep us away from these three eternal formations of the nature of Christ in us. Christ our Lord was tempted in these three areas but He overcame the devil, putting Satan to eternal shame. Christ is truly the Firstborn of God, the Father.
THE WORD OF GOD
It is Satan’s desire to see every predestined child of God neglect the word of God in their lives here, while on earth. But, it is the Spirit of God that reveals God to us by His Word. Greater is He who lives in us than he (the evil one) who lives in the world. The word of God is the seed by which we are born again in the Spirit of God. The word of God gives nourishment to grow in Christ so that Christ is formed in us fully.
God’s word is life in Christ brought to us by the Spirit of God. God’s word brings maturity to the believer in Christ. Satan would do all he can to hinder and blind these eternal treasure from God’s chosen ones.
The reason Satan fell is because it became proud and arrogant before God! He deceived Adam and Eve to do the same, to live separated from God (not needing God’s help) so that they would earn the same curse as Satan deserved for outright rebellion.
We belong to the second Adam or rather the last Adam. There is no more other Adams for us to follow-only Christ, our Last Adam. So, if someone says to you there is another after Christ whom we could follow, don’t believe them. It’s a lie.
When we obey the word of God as He speaks to us by the Holy Spirit, we become more like Christ, His beloved Son. But, Satan will seek to abort Christ being formed in us if he can persuade us to disobey the word of God.
The more we obey the word of God, the more we will become like Christ and He will be formed in us eternally.
Christ being formed in us will become our resurrected body in Christ which is being constructed at the heavenly Father’s right hand now. We will be clothed with this imperishable body at the return of Christ our King. Christ our Lord is interceding for every of God’s chosen children, that we obey His word without fail and be clothed with Him.
Did you notice that when Satan tempted Christ our Lord in the wilderness, he referred to food, first? Food is for the stomach and stomach means survival. Satan’s evil suggestion is for Christ to make his stomach his God. A temptation it still brings today to all of God’s chosen children in Christ. Satan was tempting Christ to make his short physical survival on earth the main emphasis and the most important thing to do and take his eyes off God.
Christ simply reminded Satan that the most important thing to do, as God’s chosen, is to feed on God’s word and grow by it. You can skip your eating but do not skip feeding on the word of God. When you feed on the word of God you are feeding on Christ.
When you obey the word of God, Christ is being formed in you. Do not stop obeying the word of God. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul the apostle said with affirmed warning that the true enemies of the cross of Christ are those whose ‘stomach is their God’. For such people their destiny will be destruction and their glory is in their shame actually. In Philippians 3:19, he said:
“Their destiny is destruction, their God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame”.
It is easy for us to take our eyes off God or rather shut our ears to what He is saying to us through His word when we are tested to see if physical survival is more important than the source of everything, God himself.
What God is saying to us today is more important than our daily food. I am not saying we do not need to work in this world. Each of us should be ready to face the consequences of our own actions at the end of the day, on how we conducted our lives while trying to survive on earth.
The world is changing fast but our God does not change through the ages. He is the same yesterday, today and forevermore. God’s formulae for us does not change, so, we should obey what the word of God says spoken with relevance by the Holy Spirit today to each individual.
When the book of Colossians Chapter 3:1 tells Christians “to set their eyes and minds on things above” it means to say, set your thoughts and desires always to this body you are going to be clothed with, after your resurrection in God’s presence. This body is in God’s presence now and we are seated with Christ in the heavens always.
Our thoughts must be on Christ our Lord, at the Father’s right hand, on what is transpiring there right now, between us and God through Christ. We can see these daily with the help of the Holy Spirit.
The word of God is the most important of all food to God’s chosen people in Christ. Christ is that Word, that Word was with God and that Word was God, the Son, and that Word was revealed and became flesh so that all chosen flesh of His, will become His Word in return.
The present earth and heaven will pass away but His Word will remain forever. If we are going to remain forever and ever with God, flesh must become Word first, because only Word will remain forever, nothing else will. The Word (Christ) must be formed in us, in His fullness. Only then, it will be eternal quality and material to live forever and ever with God.
In Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, we are told to let the word of Christ dwell richly in us, that would literally mean, everything He had said In Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the book of Acts, the epistles and all the books in the whole bible, inclusive of the Old Testament.
When I first believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and Lord, I began to take all the books out of the church library and search for the ‘treasure of which I had newly found the ‘clue’. It cost me much because I was only seventeen then and I had to forgo my youthful ‘experiments’ outside in the world and be shut in instead. I did know what the Holy Spirit was doing in me then, but, now I know. The Word of God is more important to His chosen ones than anything else in this world.
THE WILL OF GOD
Satan is addressed as the ‘Tempter’ in this entire passage which best describes it’s nature and rebellious self will. The sinful nature in us is Satan’s deceptively sown nature that produces ongoing temptations within us. Apostle Paul said of this nature in Romans 7:15
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”. There is an inbuilt temptation provider planted in us as a result of the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. That’s how serious the original sin is to us. We have to put to death these misdeeds of the body in us with the help of the Holy Spirit. Walking in self will is putting the Lord your God to the test. That’s how dangerous this sin is to us.
“For we know that our old self was crucified with Him(Christ) so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” Romans 6:6-7
The very clear intention displayed by the Devil here asking The Lord Jesus to “jump so that he will know if God keeps his promises” is persuading Him to walk in self will and rebellious pride.
Satan wants to prove a point to the Lord Jesus, but, the Lord knows God His Father more than the Devil. The Lord Jesus told Satan that this foolish act will amount to rebellion with self-will towards God and you need not test God to see if He will keep his promises. He surely does keep His promises unlike Satan himself, who is known to be the father of all lies and deceit.
Today, as for us who are his chosen ones in Christ our Lord, the temptation to walk in self-will, the will of others who influence us, the will of the world may turn out to be the greatest temptation to draw us away from the Lord. These may come our way very subtly, even over a movie. Satan’s intention is to abort the perfect will of God for us. The perfect will of God is for Christ’s divine nature to be formed fully in us.
“For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brothers”. Romans 8:29
.In this second temptation of Christ, we see the evil of making ‘self’ our God. The intention of the devil here is to make Christ forget the seeking of God before He does anything on this earth. Walking in ‘self’ will is the clear call of Satan to Christ. Satan claimed if Christ were to walk in self-will, God will still not mind and will protect him as His word says so. But, the Lord Jesus told Satan “do not test God” because He might not save you if you take Him for granted. In Habakkuk 1:11, it says there are some who “make their own strength their God”. Satan would want you to draw from your own strength to do anything without seeking God first because Satan was such a rebellious creature itself.
Habakkuk said in 1:11:
“Then they sweep past like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own strength is their God”.
This temptation we face daily that is to trust in our own strength instead of trusting in the Holy Spirit in us, will leads us away from seeking the will of God in everything we do on earth. Satan does not like us saying to God “let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven today”. Satan desires that everyone on earth does Satan’s evil self-will, so that he could rule the earth through them.
Satan’s intention is to see us separated far away from God and eventually not trust in Him daily as the source of every thing. Satan will suggest to you that. ’Self’ is God. If you buy that lie from the devil, you would have yielded to temptation. Yielding to temptation is sin. Of course, the most pleasurable thing for the sinful nature to do in rebellion towards God is making ‘Self’ God, but it is the pathway to eternal destruction. It is same as saying this evil ‘let Satan’s will be done on earth’.
At the Garden of Eden, Satan, by way of deceiving weaker Eve caused Adam to place importance to the lie of ‘Self’ above God. It appealed to Adam and Eve to follow the way of ‘self’ without God. Disobedience always has the element of ‘self’ above God appeal. Living with selfish ambition and self-will always appeal to the sinful nature of man which originated from Satan.
Christ re-affirmed himself on doing God’ will at all cost in the Garden of Gethsemane. Self-will took over at Garden of Eden in the hands of the First Adam but The Lord Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, prayed “Not my will, but Yours be done” at the Garden of Gethsemane. The First Adam jumped at the idea of walking in self will but the Last Adam jumped at the idea of obeying God’s will.
When Christ is formed in us, we will do the same. For the Christ formed man or woman of God, it will be more appealing for them to walk in God’s will rather than walking in self- will, the will of the world or the will of Satan. When it comes to walking in self-will, Satan is the father of this abominable sin in God’s eyes.
We have been given the Helper-the Holy Spirit. When we obey the Holy Spirit in us, we will be doing the will of God. The Lord Jesus knew what Satan was implying to Him with this temptation- that it is more appealing to walk in self-will than to seek the will of God in everything he does. The Lord Jesus’ answer to Satan was, “No, I will not test God by walking in my own self will”
Satan will attempt to make our ‘own strength’ our God. Many of mistakes that we commit today come from making our ‘own strength’ our God. It is best we realize it now and return to the Lord fully to do His will on earth. Resist self -will, the will of the world at all cost, and Satan’s destructive will. Resist them with all your might as much as the Lord Jesus ‘sweated blood’ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Resist it sharply as much as the Lord Jesus rebuked Peter, His very close disciple saying “Get behind me you, Satan…you do not have the things of God in mind!
The way of the Cross requires us to walk in the will of God, no matter how difficult it might seem. We will have to persevere on with the help of the Holy Spirit till Christ is fully formed in us. We will partake of His divine nature in full if we walk obediently to the leading of the Holy Spirit now. He will lead us to all Truth. Caution: Satan does not want you to do God’s will on earth, so, RESIST THE DEVIL with all your might. Let God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven today.
THE WORK OF GOD
The third temptation of Christ had to do with whom we will choose to serve today. It is easy for everyone to say we are serving God. What does our action show? What do we hold in highest value? Is it our money, wealth, social status, worldly recognition, people, pleasure, possessions, worldly wisdom? I mean to say, what do you hold in highest regard on earth? Another words, what or who do you worship the most? What are you most thirsty for in your life now? Just be honest with yourself. What is it that you won’t hesitate to take your own life or the life of another for? What will make you lay down your life for?
"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. "Luke 16:13
Satan knows this is the most appealing part of the sinful nature deposited in us deceptively by Satan in the Garden of Eden. If he can trigger this tripping of our feet in us, we will live under his wicked deception and yet claim heaven and everything in it, is still ours and that, we have the legal right to these things just like Satan still claims today. As we know now, his destruction is right at hand and so will it be for us if we seek these temporal things and make it the most important pursuit in life.
Many who are serving Satan today are also claiming to be servants of Christ. What makes the clear distinction between whom or what we are serving today? Jesus said “You either serve God or Money-you cannot be the servant to both or you cannot have two masters in your life to serve”.
At the fast approaching last day many will claim that they have served the Lord, but yet the Lord Jesus will say to them “I do not know you”. This will be so because there will be a marked difference between those who served the Lord and those who did not. Service will be marked by love for the master. You cannot hide from what you love much. It will eventually show clearly in your life.
If you loved money more, your conversation will be about money most of the time, even in your teaching of God’s word supposedly. If you loved God more your conversation will be about God. It will show where your heart is tilted to in the way you conduct your daily life and influencing of others. I am not referring only to those who are ignorant of God but to those who claim to know God and even claim to be leaders of God’s people.
Worship and service go together. You cannot serve God by worshipping money; neither can you worship God by serving money. We must worship and serve only our God and our Lord. You and I have a choice to either serve God or serve Mammon. Choose you this day while it is still ‘today’.
The root of all evil is money. The love of money can draw you away from the Lord and lead you into many grieve. We realize that the devil took Jesus to the top of the mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of this world. Do you know that Satan’s pride is in the kingdoms of this world? The devil is very proud of its evil establishments on this earth because that is all it got, nothing eternal. Do you But, the Lord Jesus said that all the kingdoms of this world that Satan is proud about will fall in one hour and they will become the kingdoms of our Lord. By its downfall, in Christ’s and our hands as an army of the Lord, the kingdoms of Satan will become the kingdoms of our Lord.
Love, hate, devote, despise are the words used to describe how we serve the two distinct masters of mankind. Christ formation in you will be decided by these words. Satan takes pride in money and therefore anyone who values money more than God is serving Satan. More money and wealth is seen as power to intimidate people and manipulate situations in this world. That is why the devil takes pride in this and so are the wicked. The time has finally come where those with power and fame with much money as in, millionaires and billionaires, are seen as the ‘prophets’ of the day. Not so with God, He sees them as false prophets’ crazy for power and fame. He never chose them for they do not qualify with money alone. In fact He does not know them.
Remember the ‘rich fool’? When the Lord Jesus asked if he will give up everything of this world that is holding him back, he answered ‘no’ and went on his own way, despising the way of Christ?
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world"the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does"comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 1John 2:15-17
Money or Mammon will become your God, if you reject Christ who is God’s own beloved Son. At the rate things are happening around us today, Satan is telling the world to make Money their God. It is saying if you do not have money, you do not have God. Money is being made into God.
Today, people do not want to serve the Lord if it does not promise them more money, teachings about gaining money and wealth.
Instead of filling their lives with Christ in themselves they choose to be filled with the desire for more money and be more powerful with more money. With more money they could control more lives. This is how Satan indirectly controls everyone who has fallen to its filthy schemes.
The third temptation is to make money your God and live for money alone. If you have fallen into this temptation, you are an idolater even though you are still attending church. Attending church regularly does not make you free from committing the sin of idolatry but yielding to the temptation of making Money your God does. You can continue attending the church but that does not free you from idolatry. You must stop yielding to this temptation and worship and serve God alone.
Christ had shown us the perfect way to the Heavenly Father but if we do not submit to him as the perfect Shepherd we will lose our way and wander away from Him. That is exactly what Satan wants from us.
Conclusion
These are the three temptations that Satan brings along to every believer in Christ, the temptation to make your ‘Stomach’ your God, or ‘Self’ to be your God or Money/Mammon to be your God. If you have yielded to any of the three above, you have made Satan your god unknowingly or even with your own consent, whichever it was.
When this yielding to temptation happens Christformation will never happen in you or Christformation in you will be hindered temporarily until you realize your sin, repent and turn from it. There are some who will walk in their stubbornness and not turn from it even when told. Beware! You can abort Christformation in you if you yield to Satan’s temptations in your Christian life.
Satan will attempt to stop, hinder, and abort your obedience to the Word of God, Will of God and the Work of God through you. The threea temptations to the Lord saw the early defeating of the devil before the death, burial and triumphant resurrection of the Lord. At the glorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ the devil’s defeat was made a public spectacle. The annihilation of the Devil is coming soon.
Written by: Ronald K. Pillai for Christformation In You Ministries, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. Copyright@
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