During my daily devotional, a verse jumped off the page at me like it never has before. In Mathew 4:6 we see that Jesus is being tempted by the original Mr. Dirtbag; satan.
“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
Christ’s rebuttal is what I saw in a new light, He tells Satan: “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
When it comes to preparedness, how many times have you heard someone say “I have faith that the Lord will provide”? From now on, I think my response will be “if God’s own son wouldn’t put the Lord to the test, why would you?”
Jesus could have jumped off of the building and, I am sure satan was right, there would have been a swarm of angles to keep Christ from reaching the earth. But Jesus took personal responsibility and did not put the Lord thy God to the test.
Yes it is true that after doing spiritual warfare with satan, the angles came to attend to Jesus. But I think the message still stands; we are not to put God on the spot.
This same rebuttal could be used when it comes to self-defense, for those who say they’ll just look to God to protect them and will not use a firearm for self-defense.
The second pearl comes from “Bluebird” in a recent comment on the article “Christianity and the Bibles Case for Self-Defense”.
“Please don’t forget the story about the seven wise virgins, who prepared ahead of time in case the wait for the bridegroom was a long one. Even though they were prepared, they did not share with the virgins who did not prepare. They told them if they shared, neither of them would have enough. When Jesus told this story, there was no reprimand to the wise virgins for refusing to share with the foolish ones.”
I really like this point! I made a similar point in the article “Christian Hospitality and Preparedness”. I think that we are called to be hospitable and to give when the Lord calls us to. We are not, however, required to be a food bank to everyone who didn’t use their ears to hear or their eyes to see. There are many verses where the punishments are defined for not following the Word. In Proverbs 27:12 we’re told that those who do not prepare for danger will suffer for it. It is not our job to keep them from suffering. We are, however, called to be hospitable and called to be the hands and feet of our God when He asks us to be. We must pray for discernment to know the difference!
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