November 1994 

 

Dear Family:

 

I recently had a wonderful experience while I was studying Luke 4:1-14 and God impressed on my heart to share it with you. You will recall these are the verses typically referred to as the temptation of Christ, but there is a message here that goes far beyond that. Christ had just experienced what must have been a spiritual high point  even for Him. We have all had those moments when it seemed as if our life was going to take off in another direction and for many of us it has. I'm talking about one of those moments such as when you first discovered you were a sinner and then came to the realization that God in the form of a man had come down to earth and had taken your sins upon himself and nailed them to a cross so that you wouldn't have to.  Do you remember that moment? Do you remember the time when you were going through some tragic situation, you had no place to turn but to God. Remember how you felt when He showed you that He could, would and did take care of it for you. Well this is that type setting. God had just spoken to the witnesses at Christ's baptism in Luke 3:22 "Thou art my beloved son...." My mind cannot begin to imagine the tremendous - awesome - overwhelming feeling that came over Christ.  Christ knew that He himself was God's Son. He knew what His mission was. He knew that God loved him, but to hear that echoed from heaven by the voice of God, ohhh how awesome.

 

I think of some of the spiritual high points in my life when it seemed as if I was about to float away, or as if God was standing next to me, but in my most wonderful moments, I don't think my feelings would compare to His any more than the brightness of a candle beside the launching of the shuttle.  I just can't imagine how I would feel if I heard the actual voice of God saying, "this is Chuck Thomas my beloved son".  When I think about John 1:12, I am overwhelmed. "But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name."  I'm included in that, are you?

 

The thought that you and I can become the children of God. That's a great feeling, but nothing like Christ must have felt. So why at this time and at this moment did Christ go into the wilderness?  Do you remember the story of the young preacher who visited a church and charged into the pulpit to tell the people how to live but the words just wouldn't come out right. The young man apologized, walked down and sat in the back of the church, and an old man of God came to him and said, "Son if you had gone up like you came down you could have come down like you went up."  Too heavenly minded to be any earthly good, overwhelmed with his invincibility, like Mohammed Ali, "I'm the greatest."  Why at this time and at this moment did Christ go into the wilderness? Here He was at a high point in His life as a man, "and being full of the Holy Ghost he was led by the spirit." Could it be that He was led by the spirit to be alone with God? You know God likes that.

 

GOD ENJOYS SPENDING TIME WITH HIS CHILDREN.  Look at the following:

 

Genesis 5:22, "and Enoch walked with God...three hundred years."

Genesis 6:9, "and Noah walked with God."

Exodus 33:11, "and the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend."  Moses was constantly going off to be with God.

I Cor 1:9, "God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his son."   God wants to fellow ship with His children.

Matthew 4:2, "and when he had fasted for forty days and forty nights..."

 

I think that may be the key, God wanted to be alone with Christ, to spend time with him. I think of the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 8:2, "and thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no."  God wanted his people to maintain some consistency. He wanted them to be humble. He wanted to know them.  What powerful words HUMBLE, PROVE, AND KNOW. I think that is why Christ was led into the wilderness and the devil just tagged along. Just like the devil isn't it, just tagging along waiting for the perfect moment to sneak in and knock the props out from under our feet?  To catch us when we are not looking and attack us in our most vulnerable time. And, what a better time than when we are in the middle of a spiritual high? To try to tear us down and destroy our joy and excitement.  Matthew 4:2, "and when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he afterward an hungered." Look at those words again

HUMBLE: not proud or haughty not arrogant or assertive, like humble pie (made under pressure). Have you been humbled lately?  Sometimes God has to let us run off in our own way in order to get us back into His way. That's why it gets so lonely sometimes, you've gone off without God. PSALMS 107:9" FOR HE SATISFETH THE LONGING SOUL, AND FILLETH THE HUNGRY SOUL WITH GOODNESS." Yet we leave him in the closet and go on without Him.

 PROVE: To learn or find out by experience, to test the truth, validity or genuineness of, to demonstrate as having a particular quality or worth. Does God need to Prove you, what is the quality of your commitment to him? Is it valid, is it genuine? Where does He stand in your life?  "Well, it's good to know that He is around when I need Him. Is that what He is to you?

KNOW: Come to know - perceive directly, to have direct cognition of, to recognize as being the same. Jesus in JOHN 17:1-26 prayed the real Lord's prayer and continually prayed for those who KNOW HIM 17:3 "... THAT THEY MIGHT KNOW THEE THE ONLY TRUE GOD, AND JESUS CHRIST WHOM THOU HAST SENT". Do you know Him? Don't disappoint Christ and not respond to this His prayer for you. Get to know him today. Don't put it off.

How powerful these words are especially in connection with the message of these passages, and in the spiritual condition Christ was in when He went into the wilderness.  Could it be that this experience was like the mountain top experience of Moses when his face shinned with the glory of God? And, the experience of Christ how He shown after the transfiguration? Could it be that He was on a spiritual high that no mortal can possibly know this side of heaven. I think so.

 

And then in Matthew 4:3, "and when the tempter came."  The never failing devil in the midst of this spiritual high - "the tempter came". Christ was faced with the most trying moments of His earthly life. I dare say words cannot describe what He went through, and I think that is the point.  How was He when He came back from the wilderness? Luke 4:14, "and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit..."  He came back better, stronger, fuller, higher than when He went.  That's it, it's not how you go into the wilderness, it's not what happens in the wilderness, it's how you come back.  He went in on a spiritual high, maintained the high, and came back on a higher high. No wonder He glowed at the transfiguration, He had another mountain top experience added to this one.

 

What would our lives be like if we could build on our greatest moments and maintain them to the next, and the next?  Ever have a spiritual high?  How long did it last? Are you building on that high or are you going out on your own and letting the devil steal your high? We drag into church on Sunday morning to get charged  and then leave hoping it is enough to last all week until we can get back to the charger. You've got the best charger in the business, and He wants to walk with you as a friend just like He did with Enoch, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, and to make it easier for us He has sent the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts.  JOHN 14:16, "and I will pray the father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you for ever."

 

Think of it. You are not alone. It doesn't matter where or what your wilderness is, the comforter is with you. You don't have to be defeated, you don't have to fail, you don't have to lose your joy, the comforter is there to help you. JOHN 14:23, "...if a man love me, he will keep my word: and my father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him."  Think of it.  God will make His abode with you. Abode simply means the place where one abides, their HOME. God will set up housekeeping with you. He wants us to have a spiritual high every minute of every single day. Wouldn't it be great to leave here today and come back next week higher than today?  And then get higher, and higher, and higher? Think God could use us?  I think He would say, "This is my John 1:12 son in whom I am well pleased!" Wouldn't that be great?

 

I pray that God will give you as much or more from these thoughts as He did me. Whenever you pray please pray for me too!

 

In Christ,

 

Dad

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