Luke 4

I am passionately in love with The Village Church, here in Texas. It has been one of the most redeeming parts of this whole seminary experience. I have never been and not learned something that seemed to shake me to the core. Last night was no different. Matt, the pastor, just has a way of communicating that leaves you wanting to hear more of the Word. The only explanation I have for this is an incredible gifting and touch of the Holy Spirit. Anyway, on to my point. Last night he preached through the temptation of Jesus in Luke 4. He pointed out that Jesus used Scripture as the answer to temptation. If you have at all been exposed to the church you have probably heard this same application. But Matt said it in a way that I had never heard before. He said that many times we think that Scripture is some kind of magic wand that we wave in the face of temptation to make it instantly disappear. It isn't a magic spell. Scripture is a lens, the only lens. I once read in a book that Jesus didn't come to establish another religion, He came to show us how things really are. This is what Matt was alluding to. The Scriptures show us at the deepest level of reality what the world is like. When temptations come they help us to see it how it really is. They show us the reality of sin, its death and destruction. They show us the true nature of life and joy and hope. They show us what God is like, that He is not holding out on us. They aren't our wand, they're our lens. We must know Scripture, hid in it, meditate on it, hold to it, because without it we cannot see rightly and we will always fall prey to temptation.