Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – 1 Kings 14-18
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 26:31-34
Jesus: Scripture says,
I shall strike the shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock will scatter.
Just so, each of you will stumble tonight, stumble and fall, on account of Me.
Afterward I will be raised up. And I will go before you to Galilee.
Peter: Lord, maybe everyone else will trip and fall tonight, but I will not. I’ll be beside You. I won’t falter.
Jesus: If only that were true. In fact, this very night, before the cock crows in the morning, you will deny Me three times.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Have you ever made Peter’s type of declaration about one of your snares to temptation? “I’ll never miss my devotions again. I’ll never frequent that den of evil again. I’ll never look at that filth again. I’ll never drink that stuff again. I’ll never smoke that stuff again. I’ll never …” Name the temptation that plagues you most and you’ve probably made the same promise Peter made to Jesus. “Even if everyone else falls away, I’m so devoted and so determined, I’ll never do that because I love you so much.”
What happens next? The tempter comes with just the right shiny bait and suddenly we find ourselves falling to the temptation once again. The bait looked so good and so delicious we just couldn’t help but bite and we didn’t see the hook hidden just beneath the surface. Now we’re pulled along by the angler who wants to take our soul.
Peter thought he was strong enough to handle the tempter. So did the other disciples. So often we think we’re strong enough, too. But look through scripture and you’ll find the strongest Bible heroes failing to remain strong when the tempter puts his bait in front of them. They fall to his wily schemes and suddenly find themselves drowning in a sea of disillusion and despair. They don’t know how to find the strength to carry on and are embarrassed by their inability to carefully follow God’s decrees for their lives.
Just like us, isn’t it? Don’t we do the same thing? Don’t we too often fall for the same things over and over again because we just keep taking the bait? So how do we get away from the merry-go-round and live the life God wants us to live for Him? How do we see through the schemes Satan puts in our path and live up to the promises we make to God?
There is a way. Paul describes it as living by the spirit rather than living by the flesh. It’s giving ourselves fully to God and listening and obeying Him as His Spirit in us guides us. When we are sensitive to Him, He prompts us toward the exit signs when the tempter tries to lure us into the deep with his shiny toys and illicit pleasures. Sometimes the bait Satan uses can even be good things, but not the things God has in store for you. We can lose the best in the good if we’re not careful.
When we listen to God’s spirit in us, though, He will guide us to the best for us and keep us from falling into Satan’s traps. He will point us to the exit signs when temptations come our way so we have that way of escape Paul takes about. God knows about temptation. He knows about the evil of this world. He knows the schemes Satan uses to try to trap us into a path of disobedience. And He gives us His spirit when we ask Him to guide us and teach us. To help us discern the path He would have us take instead of the path Satan and the world would direct us toward.
Peter and the rest of the disciples all abandoned Jesus the same night Peter made the declaration that he would never leave his Master. John stuck closest, just to see what was happening to Jesus in the courts of the Sanhedrin. But all of them fell to the tempter’s snare just as Jesus said they would. They could not stand without God’s Spirit living in them any more than we can.
But after Pentecost, after they asked God to fill them with His spirit, after they let God really become Lord of their lives, each began to let God lead them in ways they never understood before. They sensed His spirit guiding them and helping them, just as Jesus said He would. As you read about their lives, they no longer lived the up and down relationship with God. They lived the lives He wanted them to live enabled by the resurrection power of God’s spirit in them.
Do you want to stop falling prey to that same old habit that plagues you? Do you want to get off the merry-go-round that you know displeases God and frustrates your spiritual growth? Then give yourself wholly to Him. Then listen to and obey His spirit living in you. Live in accordance with His spirit in you, and not by the flesh. That’s the secret those early church leaders shared as their secret to living the lives God wanted them to live.
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