Monday, February 23, 2009

The full armour of God...

I believe that all would-be ministers must face the same three temptations as Jesus before they really can minister. The first temptation of Christ, to turn stones into bread (Matthew 4:3), is the need to be effective, successful, relevant, to make things happen. You've done something and people say, "Wow! Good job! You did it right. You're OK." When the crowds approve, its hard not to believe that we have done a good thing, and probably God’s will.

Usually when you buy into that too quickly, you're feeding the false self and the system, which tells you what it immediately wants and seldom knows what it really needs. You can be a very popular and successful minister operating at that level. That is why Jesus has to face that temptation first, to move us beyond what we want to what we really need. In refusing to be relevant, in refusing to respond to people’s immediate requests, Jesus says, Go deeper. What's the real question? What are you really after? What does the heart really hunger for? What do you really desire? "It's not by bread alone that we live" (Matthew 4:4).

Richard Rohr, from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p.294

When Rohr speaks of feeding the false self and the system, I'm reminded of what Paul says about rulers and authorities (Ephesians 6.12) - there is a real sense in which the "system" is the enemy's stronghold in human society, just as the "false self" is its stronghold in the heart of an individual.

We need, as even Jesus did in the desert, to put on the full armour of God, and particularly "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." (Ephesians 6.17)

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