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The Audacious Request: Just Once




“Then the devil took Him up to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the habitable world in a moment of time [in the twinkling of an eye]. And he said to Him, to You I will give all this power and authority and their glory (all their magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity and grace, for it has been turned over to me, and I give it to whomever I will. Therefore, if You will do homage to and worship me (just once), it shall all be Yours” (Luke 4:5-6, AMP). 
          This terrible audacious request was made of the Lord Jesus Christ by the devil. It is not the first time the devil had made the request; in fact, he still makes the request till this day of man! However, back to our Scripture…you may be asking at what point did the devil get his hands on all the habitable kingdoms of the world? God gave the authority of ruling the earth to Adam (male and female) in Genesis 1:26-28. However, this awesome responsibility came with a warning to ‘subdue it’.  Unfortunately, the devil found it easy to take the kingdoms away from Adam. They thought they were wise or going to be and they exchanged the God-given authority they had for a fruit! For the devil, it was like taking candy from a child. Naturally, children are carried away by the things they see (colors); they cry and throw tantrums to own them whether it will be harmful or not. Deploying the weapons of lust of the eyes and lust of the flesh, Adam and the woman fell prey to the gimmicks of the devil they were supposed to subdue and they were subdued! Now the devil owns it and is quite boastful about it as we saw in the above Scripture; he is equally not ready to ‘seemingly’ release it unless he is worshiped! This authority, the devil has released to his minions (Revelation 13:1-10). He is permitted by God to wage war against the Saints and to conquer them for a time. The fact that the enemy was permitted does not mean that we should worship him (“just once”) in order to get the splendor of the world. Jesus’ reply to the devil concerning this is a guide for us: No matter what, only God Almighty must be served and worshiped! If this sounds heavy, God simplified it for us in 1John 2: 15a, “Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world…” Once we love these things a fall is imminent as it happened to Adam and the woman. Adam did not consider the end of the matter, which is they will die. Maybe he felt since they both had a wonderful relationship with God, God cannot just kill them. This is the erroneous thinking of most of God’s children. 
         God expects us to understand that, “The world and all its passionate desires will one day disappear. But the man who is following God’s will is part of the permanent and cannot die” (1John 2:17, J. B. PHILLIPS). God is giving us the opportunity to be part of the 2nd Adam Who is Jesus Christ and not be carried away like little children by our primitive desires, greedy ambitions and the deceptive glamour of what we think is glorious just as the 1st Adam was. We must be strong willed and stand our ground against the audacious request made by the devil on a daily basis. So many wonderful children are being deceived to worship the devil ‘just once’ in order to get ahead in their endeavors. The devil has not changed his tactics; he still uses the visual technique to lead men into the traps of lust. Adam and the woman felt ‘just once’ will not matter, but it cost them everything. Friend, don’t be deceived, that which looked so colorful to the eyes and will make you look or sound great carries within it terrible consequences. We must be focused on the goal, which is to reign with the Lord in the end: “So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2Corinthians 4:18). May the Lord flood your heart with His light and open the eyes of your heart to see through the visual gimmicks of the enemy and may He grant you the grace and strength to remain standing in the face of his audacious requests in Jesus Christ name. God bless you.

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