Latest / The Daily Word / September 21 – The Ends Don’t Justify the Means
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good we hours of the night, whenever you are joining us. Welcome to the Daily Word Podcast for Link Short Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey Barnes, and it's my privilege to pass our Kotapa Campus. I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode where we're going to be looking at the New Testament portion of our life journal Bible reading plan and pull a devotion. Today is September the 21st, and we have Luke chapter 4 on the docket. Now, Luke chapter 4 has a lot in it, but it begins with Jesus going into the wilderness where he fasted for 40 days and was tempted by Satan. Today's devotion is going to come out of that story, particularly verses 5 through 8, which is the second temptation that Jesus suffered there. I am reading from the New Testament. King James Version today. Then the devil, taking him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, All this authority I will give you, and their glory. For this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you will worship before me, all will be yours. And Jesus answered and said to him, Get behind me, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Now when I was reading this, I was struck by how easy it is for us, you and I, to fall into the trap of thinking that the ends justify the means. I mean, just think about what Satan is offering Jesus here in a moment's time. He is offering Jesus authority over all the kingdoms of the earth. I mean, this is this is Jesus we're talking about. If there was anyone ever who could have been trusted with that kind of power, it it would it was Jesus. Jesus would have ruled the nations beautifully, wonderfully, and justly. He would have leveraged all that authority for good. He would have used it to bless people. So Satan was offering Jesus that something in Jesus' hands would have been used for a genuinely good purpose. The problem wasn't simply with what was being offered. The problem was what Jesus would have to do to get it. to receive what Satan was offering, Jesus would have had to compromise his worship. He would have had to compromise his obedience. Obedience to the Father, and he would have had to pursue something through illegitimate means. And I think that's where this becomes really applicable to us because how often do we convince ourselves that because we're pursuing something good, it's okay to compromise just a little bit in how we get there. You know, you hear stories about ministers. Who build e enormous ministries. And I mean, they're preaching the gospel. People are coming to Jesus. From the outside It looks like something undeniably good is happening, but then somewhere along the way, it comes out that something wasn't right. Maybe the minister was manipulating people or being dishonest, using illegitimate means of one kind or another to build their following or increase their influence. Now let's let's be clear. I'm I'm not saying that every pastor minister with a large following is doing things the wrong way. Dev n definitely not. There are tons of faithful ministers serving the Lord whose ministries have grown tremendously through legitimate means. But we live in the internet age We live with a constant news cycle and we hear the stories enough stories to know that there are definitely examples where somewhere along the way someone who may have started with genuinely good motives fell into this intention. Somewhere along the way they lost their way. They I mean they wanted to see the kingdom of God advanced, but at some point they lost sight of what Jesus said here. You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Somewhere along the way it stopped being about serving God and it began to become about serving their own ambition. Maybe they began worshipping influence or success, a larger ministry. Maybe it was just their own ego. And I mean ministry is just one example of where this happens. Because it's entirely possible for you and me to have a genuinely good desire and then get completely off track by pursuing it through illegitimate means. So here's our application for today. Is there anything good that you're pursuing the wrong way? Maybe even something that you believe God put on your heart. Maybe as you're listening to this, there's already something the Holy Spirit is kind of like tugging on your heart about, trying to get your attention. I mean it could Could involve your your marriage, it could involve your career, finances, ministry, family, any number of things, but whatever it is, I think the question worth bringing before the Lord today is Lord, is there anything that I am pursuing through a means that don't honor you? Is there any mixing and mingling of the profane and the way that I am pursuing? This is another way to do it because if you mix just a little bit of anything else and serving only God, all of a sudden you're not serving only God, you're serving something else. It isn't good enough for the thing that we're pursuing to be good. The way that we pursue it has to honor God too. So let's pray. Let's pray today. Father, I just thank you for who you are and what you are doing in our midst. And I thank you that you alone are worthy of our worship. Lord, I pray that you would search our hearts today. If there is anything that we're pursuing through compromise, anything we've allowed, a good Good desire to become an excuse for doing things in a way that doesn't honor you, would you reveal that to us, Lord? Help us to trust you enough that we don't have to compromise to get where we believe you're leading us. Jesus refused what the enemy offered him because he would worship and serve the Father alone. And in the end, Jesus received what Satan could never truly give him. In the end, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and He will reign as King. So Father, I pray that you would help us to follow His example, to trust you, to obey you, and refuse to compromise, even when the compromise appears to offer us something good. We praise you, Jesus, and we thank you for who you are. In the name of Jesus, amen.