The Temptation of Christ

I was doing some study in Mark about the temptation of Jesus. Immediately after Jesus was Baptized and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him (the greek says in Him) the Holy Spirit drives Jesus to the desert for a 40 day fast.
I thought about the significance of this time. Did He get alone with God? I don't think so. The story says that He is driven there by the Spirit to be tempted. Was it possible for Jesus (who is God incarnate) to sin? We often think that if Jesus was to be tempted then the possibility would be there. I think that there could have been a possibility however quite unlikely for Jesus to follow the suggestions given to Him by Satan.
Jesus did not have a fallen human nature like we do that is usually tempted by temptation. He also had a divine nature that was quite powerful. He goes to the desert to show what sort of man He was. This was the first of several cases where Jesus overwhelms the opposition. Satan was fighting a losing battle, but the opportunity was there so he had to try. Satan's tempting Jesus is like a row boat attacking a battle ship. It was virtually impossible. So then why? To show us that He is the ultimate power in the universe!
In contrast, Jesus teaches us in the Lord's prayer to pray "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." I think that we who have a fallen human nature with its bent toward sin needs to stand guard over temptation and hope that we stay away from its lure. But it wasn't any issue with Jesus so He was well equipped to overcome it for me.

Prayer Partner

Back in November of 2009 I sensed the need to have a prayer partner in which I can pray with on a weekly basis. I didn't want a person that was in my church but one who I respected as a fellow Christian. As I prayed about who it would be, a certain person kept coming to my mind. This was a person who was involved in a missions agency of another denomination. We have talked with each other several times before about spiritual things and I felt that he would be a good candidate. I decided to call him on the phone and invite him to breakfast at one of our neighborhood restaurants. I did and he accepted.

When we had breakfast we talked about ministry issues. He spoke of the missions opportunities opening up in India and in Guatemala. I told of my heart for doing cells and other things going on in my church. When I asked him if he would be willing to be my prayer partner, he told me that he had a sense that God was going to put this together. He told his son when I called to invite him that he felt that this was what this was about. He told me that he was desiring for several years for a prayer partner and it seemed that no one was interested. He was happy to hear someone coming to him for this. It is amazing how God works these things together.

We began the following week with prayer for each other. We prayed for two hours straight. Time seemed to fly by. It is really neat when you pray with someone for an extended time like that because the Holy Spirit guides the whole time. The topics and needs would keep coming into mind. There were several times while we prayed that I felt like it would be over, but we kept on praying. It was really good to take the time to REALLY pray. It is interesting how little patience that we have in churches for praying this way. We have a certain amount of time we feel is appropriate and we don't go over it when in fact it woefully falls short of the goal of praying for anything significant. It seems to be quite common for extended prayer in the early church but it is quite rare in our times.

It is a good thing to have a prayer partner. You can really feel the prayers. We are praying for more prayer partners in our area to be serious about praying and seeking God for a movement of His Spirit among and through His people.