Overcoming Temptation: Knowing Your Identity

Excerpt from Tempted and Tried, author - Russel D. Moore


The first step in the cycle of temptation is the question of your identity.  James told the poor and beaten down to "boast in his exaltation"  and told the prosperous and the up-and-coming to glory "in his humiliation" (James1:9-10).  Why?  James understood that temptation begins with an illusion about the self -a skewed vision of who you are.  The satanic powers don't care if your illusion is one of personal grandiosity or self-loathing, as long as you see your current circumstance, rather than the gospel, as the eternal statement of who you are.  if the poor sees his poverty as making it impossible for him to have dignity, he is fallen.  If the rich sees his wealth  as a denial that "like a flower of the grass he will pass away," even "in the midst of his pursuits (James 1:20-11), then he is undone.


Temptation has always started here, from the very beginning of the cosmic story.   When the Bible reveals the ancestral fall of the human race, it opens with a question of identity.  The woman in the Genesis narrative was approached by a mysterious serpent, a "beast of the field" that was "more crafty" than any of the others (Gen. 3:1).  and that's just the point.  The woman, Eve, and her husband were created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27).  They were living signs of God's dominion over everything except God and one another.  This dominion was exhaustive, right down to "every creeping thing that creeps on the earth"  (Gen. 1:26).


But here she was being interrogated by a "beast of the field" that questioned God's commands and prerogatives.   Without even a word, the serpent led the woman to act as though he had dominion over her instead of the other around. He persuaded her to see herself as an animal instead of as what she had been told she was--the image-bearing queen of the universe, a principality and power over the beasts.


As the same time the serpent was treating his queen as a fellow animal, he also subtly led her to see herself as more than an empress--as a goddess.  He auditioned her for her role as deity by leading her to act like a god, distinguishing autonomously between good and evil, deciding when she and her fellow were ready for maturity, evaluating the claims of God himself.  The snake prompted her to eat the fruit of the tree God had forbidden to her.  The tree somehow carried within it the power to awaken the conscience to "the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:17).  The serpent walked the woman along to where she could see herself as if she were the ultimate cosmic judge, free from scrutiny of her Creator's holiness.  At the very beginning of the human story was a question: Who are you?


(pages: 28-29)

Do All Religions Lead to God?

Excerpt from: The Reason For God, author - Timothy Keller


Sometimes this point is illustrated with the story of the blind men and the elephant. Several blind men were walking along and came upon an elephant that allowed them to touch and feel it. "This creature is long and flexible like a snake" said the first blind man, holding the elepant's trunk. "Not at all- it is thick and round like a tree trunk," said the second blind man, feeling the elephant's leg. "No, it is large and flat," said the third blind man, touching the elephant's side. Each blind man could feel only part of the elephant- none could envision the entire elephant. In the same way, it is argued, the religions of the world each have a grasp on part of the truth about spiritual reality, but none can see the whole elephant or claim to have a comprehensive vision of the truth.


This illustration backfires on its users. The story is told from the point of view of someone who is not blind. How could you know that each blind man only sees part of the elepant unless you claim to be able to see the whole elephant?


There is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to [all others]...We have to ask: "What is the [absolute] vantage ground from which you claim to be able to relativize all the absolute claims these different scriptures make?"


How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?


(pages 8 -9)

LOVE IN PRACTICE

Let me give two beautiful examples of such observable love.  One happened among the Brethren groups in Germany immediately after the last war.

In order to control the church, Hitler commanded the union of all religious groups in Germany, drawing them together by law.  The Brethren divided over this issue.  Half accepted Hitler's dictum and half refused.  The ones who submitted, of course, had a much easier time, but gradually in this organizational oneness with the liberal groups their own doctrinal sharpness and spiritual life withered.  On the other hand, the group that stayed out remained spiritually virile, but there was hardly a family in which someone did not die in a German concentration camp.

Now can you imagine the emotional tension?  The war is over, and these Christian brothers face each other again.  They had the same doctrine and they had worked together for more than a generation.  Now what is going to happen?  One man remembers that his father died in a concentration camp and knows that these people over on the other side have deep personal feelings as well.

Then gradually these brothers came to know that this situation just would not do.  A time was appointed when the elders of the two groups could meet together in a certain quiet place.  I asked the man who told me this, "What did you do?"  And he said, "Well, I'll tell you what we did.  We came together, and we set aside several days in which each man would search his own heart."  Here was a real difference; the emotions were deeply, deeply stirred.  "My father has gone to the concentration camp; my mother was dragged away."  These things are not just little pebbles on the beach; they reach into the deep well-springs of human emotions.  But these people understood the command of Christ at this place, and for several days every man did nothing except search his own heart concerning his failures and the commands of Christ.  Then they met together.

I asked the man, "What happened then?"

And he said, "We just were one."

To my mind, this is exactly what Jesus speaks about.  The Father has sent the Son!

The Importance of Discerning Idols

Excerpt from Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller


The Importance of Discerning Idols


It is impossible to understand your heart of your culture if you do not discern the counterfeit gods that influence them. In Romans 1:21-25 Saint Paul shows that idolatry is not only one sin among many, but what is fundamentally wrong with the human heart:


For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave their thanks to him… They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator. –Romans 1:21-25


Paul goes on to make a long list of sins that create misery and evil in the world, but they all find their roots in this soil, the inexorable human drive for “god-making.” In other words, idolatry is always the reason we ever do anything wrong. No one grasped this better than Martin Luther. In his Large Catechism (1529) and in his Treatise on Good Works he wrote that the Ten Commandments begin with a commandment against idolatry. Why does this come first? Because, he argued, the fundamental motivation behind lawbreaking is idolatry. We never break the other commandments without breaking the first one. Why do we fail to love or keep promises or live unselfishly? Of course, the general answer is “because we are weak and sinful,” but the specific answer in any actual circumstance is that there is something you feel you must have to be happy, something that is more important to your heart than God himself. We would not lie unless we first had made something – human approval, reputation, power over others, financial advantage – more important and valuable to our hearts than the grace and favor of God. The secret to change is to identify and dismantle the counterfeit gods of your heart.


It is impossible to understand a culture without discerning its idols. The Jewish philosophers Halbertal and Margalit make it clear that idolatry is not simply a form of ritual worship, but a whole sensibility and pattern of life based on finite values and making created things into godlike absolutes. In the Bible, therefore, turning from idols always includes a rejection of the culture that the idols produce. God tells Israel that they must not only reject the other nations’ gods but “you shall not follow their practices” (exodus 23:23). There is no way to challenge idols without doing cultural criticism, and there is no way to do cultural criticism without discerning and challenging idols. A good example of this is the preaching of Saint Paul in Athens (Acts 17) and Ephesus (Acts 19:26), which led to such an alteration in the spending patterns of the new converts that it changed the local economy. That in turn touched off a riot led by local merchants. Contemporary observers have often noted that modern Christians are just as materialistic as everyone else in our culture. Could this be because our preaching of the gospel does not, like Saint Paul’s, include the exposure of our culture’s counterfeit gods?

Is Christianity Hard or Easy?

Excerpt from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis


Is Christianity Hard or Easy?


In the previous chapter, we were considering the Christian idea of ‘putting on Christ’ or first ‘dressing up’ as a son of God in order that you may finally become a real son. What I want to make clear is that this is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do; and it is not a sort or special exercise for the top class. It is the whole of Christianity. Christianity offers nothing else at all. And I should like to point out how it differs from ordinary ideas of ‘morality’ and ‘being good’.

The ordinary idea which we all have before we become Christians is this. We take as starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else – call it ‘morality’ or ‘decent behavior,’ or ‘the good of society’ – has claims on this self: claims which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by ‘being good’ is giving in to those claims. Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call ‘wrong’: well, we must give them up. Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call ‘right’: well, we shall have to do them. But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes. In fact, we are very like an honest man paying his taxes. We pays them all right, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on. Because we are still taking our natural self as the starting point.

As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of two results is likely to follow. Either we give up trying to be good, or else we become very unhappy indeed. For, make no mistake: if you are really going to try and meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier. In the end, you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, ‘live for others’ but always in a discontented, grumbling way – always wondering why the others do not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself. And once you have become that you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish.

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’

His Self Centered Teaching

Excerpt from Basic Christianity by John R.W. Stott:

The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus is that he was constantly talking about himself. It is true that he said a great deal about the fatherhood of God and the kingdom of God. But then he added that he is the Father’s “Son,” and that he himself had come to launch the kingdom. Entry into the kingdom depends on how people respond to him personally. He even went so far as to call the kingdom of God “my kingdom.”

This self-centeredness of the teaching of Jesus immediately sets him apart from the other great religious teachers of the world. They tend to be self-effacing. He is self-advancing. They point people away from themselves, saying, “That is the truth so far as I understand it; follow that.” Jesus says, “I am the truth; follow me.” No other religious founder who dared to say such a thing would be taken seriously. The personal pronoun forces itself repeatedly on our attention as we read his words. For example:


I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to be will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.


I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.


I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.


I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.


Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.


The great question to which the first phase of his teaching leads is, “Who do you say that I am?” He refers back to figures from the distant past and makes the astonishing claim that Abraham rejoices to see his day, that Moses wrote about him, that the Scriptures point to him, and that indeed in the three great divisions of the Old Testament – the law, the prophets and the writings – there are things "concerning himself."


Luke describes in some detail the dramatic visit that Jesus pays to the synagogue of his home village, Nazareth. He was given a scroll of the Old Testament Scriptures and he stood up to read. The passage is from the book of the prophet Isaiah 61:1-2:


'The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.'


He closed the book, returned it to the synagogue attendant and sat down, while the eyes of all the congregation were fastened on him. He then broke the silence with the amazing words, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ In other words, ‘Isaiah was writing about me.’

Holiness is not a gift we receive

Excerpt from Chapter 5 of The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges:


Let us first look at God's provision for us.


In the Bible we read, "Therefore do not sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires" (Romans 6:12). The first thing we should notice in this passage is that the pursuit of holiness - this not allowing sin to reign in our mortal bodies - is something we have to do. Paul's statement is one of exhortation. He addressed himself to our wills. He said, "Do not let sin reign," implying that this is something for which we ourselves are responsible. The experience of holiness is not a gift we receive like justification, but something which we are clearly exhorted to work at.


How do you consciously cast out sin and work on your relationship with God?