Satan uses doubt as a key weapon to take us away from God. He said to Eve, “Did God actually say…?” And with Jesus, he said, “If you are…?”
Satan was a fool to tempt Jesus. However, we do the same thing when we say, “Jesus if you are truly God, then heal me, fix me, protect me, provide for me.” We are putting God’s reputation to the test. We are saying only if you do these things on my command will I then believe you are who you say you are.
God, however, was and is always way ahead of us. He knows those are the things we will need from Him before we ever asked for them. He created us and by doing so, knows what we needed in this world. God knows that even if He would act upon our command and deliver all we ask, we would still come up short. For what we ask for, only feeds our selfishness and not a deeper, much more fulfilling need that is to die to ourselves and to love him and his people.
The transition for a human to go from self-centeredness to selflessness is the path less traveled. How many of us are willing to tempt God and say, “If you are truly God then, take away all my selfish desires, my power, my possessions, my money, my time, my heart, and use it to serve you, Lord, and your people?”
Now that is a temptation, I think God would honor! It would bring God the greatest joy to show you His transforming powers, that you would be aligned with His purpose.
The great news is even here, we don’t need to tempt God. He provided this as well with the death of Jesus. He has nothing that He needs to prove or that we can tempt Him by. He has given us everything we could ever want or need. The choice is to believe or not. It’s not a matter of Him performing, it’s a matter of us believing in His performance.
The question to put before God is not, “If you are…” rather, it is, “Will you…?” Will you forgive me? Will you help me with my unbelief? Will you guide me onto your paths? Will you teach me to love as you do?
So, as God works in us, we will go from “If you are…?” to “I know you are…!”
#JustAThought
