When the Devil came to tempt Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11), he presented ideas to Jesus that sounded great, very tempting, certainly wise and of benefit to Jesus himself. He even used scripture in his arguments with our Lord. However, Jesus clearly countered him with the same weapon each time: his own knowledge of the scriptures.

My first post on this blog was about such a situation, and the prompting of the very reasoning for the blog theme. Something that sounded right, but did NOT square with the word of God. I have come across such ‘unholy wisdom’ countless times. A couple of examples:

Wisdom?: “When you take something to God in prayer, you don’t need to keep repeating it: has he not already heard you? If you pray the same thing again, you’re showing that you don’t believe that he HAS!”

Answer: We are exhorted to pray; it is how we ask God to intervene in a world largely left in our own hands. Jesus prayed for hours in Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-41), and:

“Pray continually.” (1 Thess. 5:17)

“They all joined together constantly in prayer” (Acts.1:14)

“…and will give our attention to prayer…” (Acts. 6:4)

Wisdom?: “I don’t need to attend church to be a Christian.”

Answer: Sure! Salvation is dependent on his grace, not our works or our holy observances, but…

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Easy to do once you have the word in your head and heart.

Grace be with you.