Do You not know? Have You not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. [Isaiah 40:21-26]
Holy Spirit, Luke records in his writings that Christ went and fasted for 40 days and then Satan came along to tempt him in his physical weakness. Three times Satan tried to get Christ to look away from his trust in God and handle things himself. The very core of Satan’s attack is two-fold: 1. We can’t put all our trust in God and 2. We can handle things on our own. Whoever coined the phrase, “God helps those who help themselves” bought into the lie and does not understand scripture. My very life, breath, existence, and depends on the mercy and grace of God. I can do nothing without Christ. I may see minimal success here on this broken defeated world but in the light of eternity, I have done nothing worthy of heaven. My hope, my strength, the very core of who I am is completely and utterly dependent on the one who created me with a purpose. For me to be so prideful, so full of myself to think I can control the world around me and my destiny if pure foolishness. It is the core of the lie that is Satan himself who thought himself as good or greater than God. I will not be this fool nor his fool. I now understand that Satan has so sold this lie to the world that they think me the fool. Well, where is their comfort when heartache comes, when death takes away, when disease runs rapid, when evil destroys and wrecks lives. I am not perfect, far from it, but I have the assurance that life here is but a few years and that I am going to an eternity of hope to live with a Christ who created, loved and died for me. [Luke 4]
Choose you this day whom you will serve and then do so with all that You have. I choose Jesus and I will serve with all my heart. Amen.