Mon.’s Devo- Power Over the Devil

Read: Matthew 4: Luke 4-5; John 1:15-51
There is so much to learn in the temptations that Jesus suffered. The first temptation was for Jesus to do something for himself for which Jesus said it was much better to do what God says. The second temptation was to let Satan do something for him. The devil lied through that whole thing because he doesn’t have the power over the kingdoms or the leaders of the earth - God does. Jesus set him straight. The last temptation was to make God move. I think this is our greatest temptation. If Jesus threw himself off the temple then God would have to scramble to catch him. Jesus called this tempting the Lord. James says that God can’t be tempted with evil and would never tempt us either. In other words, it is not God that puts us in a box where we have no other recourse than to choose his way. We tend to blame God for things that we get ourselves in or that we have allowed the devil to deceives us.
After Jesus’ fast and temptation he was filled with the power of the Spirit. He would need it because he was making his way to his home town. He walked into the synagog and read the reading for the day and it was all about him. When he tried to tell them that they couldn’t believe it because they had watched him grow up and couldn’t see him as the Messiah. He explained how a prophet is never accepted in his own town then gave them two examples of non-Jews who God chose to do a miracle for. They were incensed and wanted to throw him off a cliff. Instead he supernaturally walked right through the crowd and went his way. He went to Capernaum which means “village of comfort.” He needed some.
Notice how many times Jesus casts demons and evil spirits out of people. We are going to be doing this more and more. We can stand up to Satan just like Jesus did - fearlessly wielding the Sword of the Spirit.
In Luke 5, Jesus talks about putting a piece of a new garment on an old garment and putting new wine into old bottles. He had just finished eating with the sinners and publicans. When rebuked for eating with them he explained that it is not the well people that need a doctor. The new wine was the salvation, healing, deliverance that Jesus was bringing. He was ushering a new covenant - new wine, new garment. This salvation couldn’t be put on the law but it had to start with a new heart. The person had to be born again and die to the old way of following the law to get to God. The law was not bad in itself but its result was changing. The new covenant was in Jesus and he required a new heart to fill. This new covenant was not going to be easy to swallow especially for those who loved the old. That is always how it is. When God brings new music to the church there are those who still want the old. We have to become new wineskins over and over.
Lord, pour your new wine into the new wineskins of our heart.