Sunday Mornings

  "If you are the Son of God..." Matthew 4:3&6 Today's episode is a sequel to the previous blog post on the serpent's lies that makes our heart turn in rebellion to God and His laws. Matthew 4 gives an account of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. Unlike the children of Israel in the wilderness, Jesus was not persuaded by the devil's lies to doubt God and what He said; and unlike the first man - Adam, Jesus did not fall to the tricks of the devil. May God grant us similar victory as we rest in Jesus and His faithfulness to deliver us from the tricks of the enemy. Amen. "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." Matthew 3:17 It is so fascinating that just before we begin chapter 4 of Matthew's gospel, chapter 3 ended with a declaration from God. This was heard at least by Jesus Himself and probably all who were standing there. But it is precisely the same thing that God spoke of that Satan was attacking in the temptation narrati...

  ...so that we are not outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs. II Cor 2:11 That old serpent who has been deceiving the world from the beginning has been using some old tricks ( Rev 12:9 , John 8:44 ). The bible instructs us not to be ignorant of his designs. Today we visit the Garden of Eden to uncover 4 of the tricks he uses to turn our hearts away from God. It has worked severally, but God wants us to be aware of it; so that we can detect it and overcome him ( Gen 4:7 ). 1. God is withholding something good from you: If Satan can succeed in making God look wicked in your eyes, it will be very easy to rebel against His laws: "Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?" ( Gen 3:1b ) This question begins a lot of mental analysis. You count what God says you can do and cannot do. And suddenly you realise that God is limiting your freedom in some sense. But this is not true. There is freedom in Christ, but godly freedom always has hea...

  And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Gen 25:28 By the grace of God, today we will be looking at the Esau syndrome that plagues many of us who desire earnestly to do God's will, but oftentimes, our passion comes in the way. To set the context of today's key verse, if we go a few verses behind, we see that Rebekah was barren vs21 . Isaac prayed for Rebekah vs21 . God answered his prayers and Rebekah is pregnant with twins vs21 . Before they are even born to have done anything right or wrong to win God's favour ( Rom 9:10-13 ), God tells Rebekah that the older would serve the younger vs23 ( Malachi 1:2&3 ). It is plausible that Rebekah must have told her husband what God had revealed to her. It is also plausible that Isaac must have probably got a revelation from God too on this matter. (These are not explicitly said in the bible and so we must be careful how we use these plausible scenarios). But our anchor text says that Isaac love...