Now What?

Now What?

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Matthew 4:1-11

We have considered for the past three days the temptation of Christ. We have considered when and how Satan tempted Christ. We have also considered how Christ responded and overcame temptation. There is, however, one nagging question which plagues us. Christ ‘was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.’ He succeeded in overcoming temptation. On a practical level, we may succeed as well. The Holy Spirit may bear us up. We may have power to overcome temptation and come away victorious. What if we do not? What if we find ourselves having failed and sinned? Now what? The answer, lies again, in the Scripture. ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ Do we want to overcome temptation? Of course we do. Will we overcome temptation, by the grace of God? Yes, we often will. Will we always succeed? No, we will not. The wonderful thing is, ‘There is forgiveness.’ We can humbly come to God, Our Father, confess our sin, and He will both forgive us and cleanse us. ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ Here is the answer to the ‘Now what?’ of failure. The Mercy and Grace of God, Who has called us unto Himself, is plentifully able to deal with our failures. He has all the answers, and they all take us back to Christ, the Rock of Our Salvation.  Christ is of great value to us, whether we we succeed or fail.

Our most Gracious and Forgiving God,
We rejoice that there is forgiveness with You.
Cleanse us of every earth gathered stain,
wash us afresh in the cleansing blood of Christ.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning