My flesh was crying out for quick relief from hunger at 9pm last night. As I was driving home from a hospital visit, I was hungry and tempted to grab fast food on the way home, instead of waiting to eat nutritionally from my own refrigerator. So, after several minutes of idea after idea being presented to me to pull over, here or there, for junk food, by the grace of our living Lord, instead, I tuned into our Christian talk radio station! Hallelujah! God provided my way of escape. There was a pastor speaking on temptation! He read from Webster's, the definition of temptation which I am including here: Temptation is the desire to perform an action that one may enjoy immediately or in the short term, but will probably later regret for various reasons; including feeling guilt and health-related consequences. Temptation is the inclination to sin. Temptation also describes the coaxing or inducing a person into committing such an act, by manipulation or otherwise of curiosity, desire or fear of loss.
This was the wisdom I needed to hear that snapped me out of the flesh and back into the Spirit of Christ who wants to live His life through me! I had the needed grace to make it home and eat something healthy from my storehouse. I pray we can all be delivered moment by moment from the temptation to meet our own needs with our own knowledge of good and evil. I have no such knowledge. God is right, apart from Christ I can do nothing good!
Galatians 2:20 for I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loves me and who gave His life for me!
Recently someone sent me this Scripture from Exodus and was wondering if we, Christians, are still under a curse of sickness, according to this Old Testament verse:
So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said, "If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you."
It quickly reminded me of these Scriptures:
Galatians 4:4-5 But when the set time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman,
Born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.
Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree".
Colossians 2:14-15 He cancelled our debt, moved it out of the way, nailed it to the cross (tree), disarmed the rulers and authorities, made a public display of them, and triumphed over them through Him.
John 19:30 It is finished!
Romans 8:1 There is therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, has set us free from the law of sin and death.
Praise God, Jesus became our substitute on the cross and literally fulfilled the requirement of the law for you and me. When Christ died to the law, so did we. (Gal 2:19-20, Colossians 2:20, Colossians 3:3, 2 Timothy 2:11). Someone once asked me if they don't give a tithe according to Malachi, are they under a curse? Since Christ fulfilled the law and we have received his gift of grace, with all the benefits of salvation, including the release from the curse of sin and death, we are no longer under law but grace (see Romans 1-8). This does not mean the law was bad or that we should teach people to break the law! On the contrary, the new law of the spirit goes much farther than the law of Moses in doing right! According to the New Covenant, we are not required to live up to a set law on giving a certain tithe, but we are to give according to our ability (2 Corinthians 8:12-14) and to give generously from the heart! It appeared the New Covenant believers gave over and above the 10% requirement of the law and instead, gave liberally from a heart of love and with thanksgiving. The law has boundaries. Love knows no boundaries.
Oh how grateful I am that Christ has redeemed me from the law and nailed all my sins to the tree. He has cast those sins, past, present, and future, into the sea of forgetfulness and He remembers them no more! For that I live grateful and mindful.
Because Christ hung on the tree, He took my infirmities, and He bore my sicknesses (Matthew 8:16-17)! Mark 16:17-18 says, "They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover"! I am so glad for those in the Body who have the "gifts of healing" (1 Corinthians 12:9),
And that the sick can call on the elders of the church to anoint them with oil, and pray the prayer of faith over them, and they will be healed!
This is the commandment or the work of service the Father asks of us: (John 6:29) that we believe in the One Whom He has sent (that we cleave to, trust in, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger--His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ). Now it is for us to walk in the Truth we have been given and live an obedient life of freedom in Christ. Praise God for His indescribable Gift--His Son, Christ Jesus our LORD!