Recently, I picked up a new devotional book. Come With Me, by Suzanne Eller. Suzanne is one of the writers for Proverbs31.org and the First 5 app.
The devotional book is A yearlong Adventure in Following Jesus. I picked this up, because sometimes I just don’t know where to begin. Sometimes I open up my bible and think, where should I read. I pray, “Lord, where should I read.” Sometimes, I’m inspired and other times I am not.
A few months ago I was inspired to read just the red letters in the book of Matthew. I did that. Luckily, I have read through my bible several times (mostly) and knew context. It was interesting to just read what Jesus said. If you’ve never done that, you should try it.
Anyway, back to Come With Me. I’ve only read just a couple pages. It’s not something I’m reading everyday, but one day this week hit me.
The scripture was from Luke 4:3.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
Of course this is where Jesus is in the wilderness with Satan and he is trying to persuade Jesus to bow to him. When I think of that scene, I always want to chuckle. I just think it’s funny that the enemy would try that with the Lord. He knows the outcome, but he still tries anyway.
I guess that is like us and sin. When we lie or over eat or spend money we don’t have, we know the outcome, but yet, we do it anyway.
The main point of this devotion is that the enemy tries to entice us like he did Jesus back then. Sometimes we fall for it. If we’re paying attention we won’t. But I love what she says here, ” We have all heard that voice of enticement. It calls us to compromise or fulfill an instant longing and takes us from the will of God. It demands that we take things into our own hands and strip them from God’s.”
“It demands that we take things into our own hands …” Wow! Doesn’t that strike a nerve? It reminds me of something I did a few years back. It was Christmas time and we were very low on extra funds. So I looked at some things and was able to finagle and extra $1000 for Christmas. I thought to myself, now I feel secure. Christmas is covered, no problem!
And wouldn’t ya know it, within 2 weeks all that money was gone. Not a dime was spent on Christmas. I was so angry! I couldn’t believe it. We had car trouble. Well over $800 dollars on just 1 car! Then the rest was a dime here and a dime there on other cars. Anger wasn’t even what I felt. Rage, discuss, betrayed to name just a few. I was mad at God. How could He let this happen? Now how will we pay for Christmas?
It took me a few days to let my anger calm to even give room in my heart to hear from Him. When I did, all I could do was trust. Funny thing, I don’t remember ever going without that Christmas. God provided. I do wonder though, if I had left that $1000 where it was, would we have had car trouble? If I would have trusted Him in the first place, would any of that happen?
I hope this little chat has given you something to think about. The next time we find ourselves tempted to strip something from God’s hands and do it ourselves, I HOPE we will think of Jesus and how he turned from Satan. Go read Luke 4 if you need a refresher. You can also find Come With Me on Amazon.
Have a lovely weekend. And as much as it pains me to say it, Happy Fall Y’all!
♥Sabrina
keystothegenuinelife.com 