WORD OF LIVING WATER DAILY INSPIRATION

BE STRONG TO OVERCOME THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE DEVIL 

(Gen. 2: 7-9; 3:1-7, Psalm 51, Romans 5:12-19, Matt 4:1-11) 

Once again, the season of Lent is here with us with its demand of spiritual renewal. The best moment the church can offer us is this time of grace where we are called to renew our lives as children of God. We are to grow deeper in our prayer life, in our virtue of charity, and in our acts of mortification (fasting). Our acts of mortification should help us to develop a strong will to overcome the temptations in our lives as believers. This is what Jesus was able to do to overcome the devil with all the appealing worldly things. It takes a strong will to defeat the temptations of this world. Lent offers us this opportunity to be strong in character as children of God. The Christian journey is full of temptations which needs the grace of God to defeat them. Temptation in itself is not a sin but can lead us to commit sin. Hence, it is important for us to have what it takes to overcome them.

The first reading presents to us the temptation of our first parents, Adam and Eve. The devil misled them to disobey God. This is a deceit of the devil. He makes things so appealing to us, and then we follow him blindly. One can say that they followed pleasure, which brought the spiritual virus(sin) into the world. Pleasure is a powerful force that you and I need strong will and self-control to overcome. If not we will always fall prey to the temptations of the devil. The first Adam and the first Eve fell to the tricks of satan, but he couldn’t succeed with the Second Adam (Jesus) and the Second Eve (Mary).

My dear friends in Christ, the first clue I want us to learn from the temptation of Jesus is the fact that the devil seeks to tempt those who are strong in faith, who wants to live authentic Christian life. After His baptism, He was full of the Holy Spirit and was led to the desert to still strengthen Himself spiritually through fasting and prayers. This was to prepare Him adequately for His ministry. It was in this context that He was tempted by the devil. The devil should have at least been afraid to get closer to Him. Because as someone will say, He was full of anointing. Again, He should have known that Jesus was God, hence He has the power over everything. But in the midst of all these, the devil mustard courage or had the momentum to tempt our saviour. No matter how strong you are spiritually, do not think that you cannot be tempted. If Jesus was tempted by the devil, then we should also know that we are not going to escape it. Some of us even think that we are too strong to fall. My brother or sister, do not deceive yourself. It is not for nothing that the scriptures caution the strong to be careful so that they do not fall (1Cor 10: 12). Mighty trees have fallen before to the tricks of the devil. You are not better than those people spiritually, but they fell so stand well. Do not allow spiritual pride to take control of your life, but see yourself as someone who is only surviving through the grace of God. When God’s grace is out then you are nothing. 

The temptation of Jesus brings out a lot of things that the devil uses to mislead us in this world but I will discuss three majorof them. The first one has to do with food or pleasure, the second is wealth and the third worldly power. The devil is ruling most of us our lives because he has succeeded in conquering us in these areas. Jesus rather conquered him,hence he was defeated in shame. 

Jesus might have been very hungry in the period of his fasting and prayers for forty days and night. This is normal for every human being. We should not forget that Jesus even though was God, He was also fully human so he felt hunger. The cunning devil tempted His taste for pleasure so that He will sin. In fact, he knew that Jesus had the power to turn stone into bread. Satan often takes advantage of our circumstances and wants to tempt us. But Jesus made him to understand that the human existence is not all about pleasure, but the ultimate is to please God so that we can gain eternal life. “Truly, man does not live by bread alone but on the word that proceeds from the mouth of God” Matt 4:4. My dear friends in Christ, life is not all about food or worldly pleasure. No, life goes beyond that. But the devil has succeeded in making people think that life is all about pleasure. Such people have become hedonist, who only find joy in this life in things that offers pleasure. They do not sometimes care even if they have to sacrifice others to get this. Some even go to the extent of killing. It is this spirit of hedonism that Jesus wants us to guard against in this Lent. Some of us we get pleasure from sexual act,  the watching of pornography, masturbation, our phones, television, from our relationships, from over sleeping, from our work, to mention a few. For some of us food has become our god. We are not ready to sacrifice anything about our food for the sake of others. Jesus is saying that what should give us the greatest pleasure is the fact of doing the will of God. There is nothing more pleasurable than this as children of God. The church is encouraging us to abstain and fast from things which block us from having strong relationship with Christ. In fact, most of us would need to fast from our phones. We are spending a lot of time with our phones but less time with God. What are you fasting from? 

Material possessions is controlling our lives instead of God. People are amassing wealth left and right without thinking about their spiritual lives. He promised to give Him all the wealth He needs if only He will worship him. The ministers of God and other agents of evangelization are not spared in this regard. Jesus encourages us “to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and the other things shall be added to us” (Mt 6:33). Again in Mt 16:26, He says “what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose his soul? Jesus is warning us against attachment to material things in His temptation in today’s gospel. Some of us have made these things gods in our lives pushing away God, the author of our life. We should not forget that all things in these world will one day come to an end, except the Word of God. Therefore, where are we going with these things we are struggling for without thinking about our salvation? Life they say is so short so let us remember to worship God whiles we have what it takes to do so. We are to detach ourselves from wealth this Lent and get more close to Jesus. 

Some of us have also become power drunk to the extent that we can kill or harm our colleagues because of power. We want to have power to do what we want without regard for anybody. Power in itself is not bad but should be sort out in a genuine way. Authority must be used to serve God and humanity. But when it is now used for personal interest without recourse to God, then there is a problem. This Lent is a period for us to reflect more on our lives in this area and make amends. We are all leaders in one way or the other, hence the need for us to check this aspect so that we can defeat the devil when we are tempted to deviate from the path of God. 

Beloved in Christ, Jesus was able to defeat the devil because He was well versed in Scripture and a prayerful man. It is only through the Word of God and prayer that we can defeat the devil. We are to grow more in love of the Word of God especially in this season of Lent. The daily meditation on Scripture is very important. Make time every day to read your Bible, because we spend a lot of time reading other things which does not lead us to salvation. Why can’t we also do that for our spiritual growth?  We should not forget that the devil also quoted the Scriptures to indicate to Jesus that He too is good at it. But the difference is that he interpreted them wrongly. He used the scripture to back his evil deeds, which some of us are fond of doing. We quote Scripture to back our evil deeds and this a grave sin against God. The purpose of Scripture is not to support evil or wrong actions, it is to help us to become authentic witnesses. 

Most of these temptations come more in psychological form instead of physical. He will suggest some things to you very appealing, and it is our conscience which help us to battle it in order to overcome it. Precisely why we need a strong will to overcome him. A weak or dead conscience cannot defeat the devil hence we must wake-up.    

The purpose of this season is to make us better Christians especially by overcoming the temptations of the devil. You cannot defeat him if we do not develop strong will by our prayer life and self- mortification. This is a process and not an event, because it takes time to achieve this. The Second Adam (Jesus) and the Second Eve (Mary) were able to defeat him, and so we can. May God grant us the grace to become better Christians and develop strong will to overcome the cunning ways of the devil. AMEN. Develop a strong will. overcome the devil’s temptation today. Meditate on God’s word daily. Be strong in virtue. 

Have a blessed Sunday, a spirit- filled lent and a favoured WEEK ahead.

REV. FR. Akakpo matthew.