Thursday, August 10, 2006
Think of a name that goes with magic and you'll probably think of Houdini. Harry Houdini was the master of illusion, incredible escapes which made it almost ironic how he died. He defied all kinds of dangers in his life, like the time they tied him in a straight jacket, hung him upside down from the eaves of a tall building and he got away. And then there was the time he escaped from an air-tight tank filled with water. One of the tricks he did was he would often invite people to come up and hit him as hard as they could right in the stomach and he never winced. One day a young athlete volunteered to come up on stage and try it, and he landed his hardest punch in Houdini's stomach, except Houdini wasn't ready for the trick yet, and that blow to the stomach killed him. Now, it wasn't the most dangerous thing he ever faced. He just wasn't ready.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Punch You're Not Ready For."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 4. I'll begin reading with verse 1, "Jesus full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for 40 days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry. The devil said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.' Jesus answered, 'It is written: Man does not live on bread alone.'" No one ever said the devil plays fair. Here is Jesus' weakest spot, his hunger, and Satan goes for it. Satan's thinking one way he could get Jesus to do what he said was to hit him at the point of his hunger.
It's the same way the devil comes after you and me. Here's an interesting question to think about briefly, "If I were the devil, what weakness would I go after in me?" Would it be your ego? Your need to get the credit and the glory? Would it be your insecurity? Your feelings of inadequacy? Your need to control? Your sexual weakness? Your materialism? Or would he exploit your loneliness? Or go after your tendency to worry? See, it's important to know where your most vulnerable spots are because I'll tell you, your enemy knows. So how do you handle this? How do you get ready for the punch?
Each morning, you consciously surrender that soft spot, that weakness to the Lord Jesus Christ. Make it His area of your life. Secondly, deal with any of yesterday's failures. Bring it under 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Get rid of yesterday's failures so they don't set you up for today. And then the third thing is the thing I do when I get on an airplane; identify your exits. I always check and see where the exits are. You have to see where your exits are from that temptation and say, "How can I avoid being in a position where I can have my weakness exploited? Make sure that you candidly and completely bring it to Jesus. And fourthly, learn scripture that relates to that area of weakness so that you can do what Jesus did: answer the temptation with a bold retort from the Word of God. And don't get careless because you've won a few in that area recently.
1 Corinthians 10:12 warns us, "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." Houdini didn't die because of the hit. He died because he wasn't ready. Don't let Satan knock you out with his punch just because you're not ready. When you make that area of weakness that has been the devil's playground into Jesus' holy ground, then you are ready for any hit.