CHARACTER. When I was reading my bible this morning I was struck by something I have read many times in Luke 4. It is the scripture about Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. He was led there by the Holy Spirit. This morning, for the first time, I saw that He was led there for the express purpose of testing His character. Just like the Israelites were back in Genesis. They were physically tested but at the same time, GOD was testing their hearts. Today I saw that Jesus was also tested both ways. Now in our minds, it really wasn't a proper temptation because, this is Jesus - right? I mean how tested can He be? Actually, this response comes from not appreciating the "fully man" side of His person.

I guess that is why He was ravenously hungry, because the first test was about food. The second test was about power - literally a short cut to what God had sent Him to do. And the third test was about dying early. The devil knew quite well that if he could get Jesus to test God in this area His chances of being the Saviour of the World would be vastly reduced! he was saying, in effect, "God won't even let you fall over, so jumping off a building.. NO PROBLEM! Everyone knows the outcome of these tests, but what I want to highlight today is that God allowed Jesus to be tested and tempted, when His physical body was weakened, when His mind was clouded, when His Spirit was battered. Apart from the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Cross, there would be no other testing/temptation that would hit Him so hard.

I believe the Christian world is in this phase of being tested/tempted right now. And the temptation is for us to be full of the power of the Spirit, (healing the sick, raising the dead etc.), and not the fruit of the Spirit. The Lord plans to raise up and army of believers who are fruitful, not just powerful. In the Pentecostal world, people who walk in power are greatly esteemed. We buy the latest revival book, listen to sermons, cable TV and tapes to try to 'capture' the spirit of what God is doing. Maybe sometimes a person can even feel like if they can duplicate the circumstances and methods of a man of God then they can walk in those wonderful things too!

But we constantly need to remind ourselves of the fact that the yard stick spiritually is Christ, not brother so and so, and Christ's character was exemplary all the time. He walked perfectly with the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Holy Spirit never LEFT Christ until the end of the crucifixion when He was made our sin! Also Jesus Himself gave His authority to do the miraculous to the disciples long before Pentecost. Miracles do not rely on character. If they did, then Judas would have been seen as an obvious betrayer. As it was, everyone except Jesus, was surprised by the betrayal and no-one knew it was him!

So we should all expect to be tempted and tested at times when we are spiritually low, physically low, and emotionally and mentally low, just like Jesus was in the wilderness. It should be as normal as getting blessed is. Both things are part of the ordinary Christian's life and growth. Speaking for myself, I am either - IN a time of testing - COMING OUT of a time of testing - or JUST BEGINNING a time of testing and this has been the case for the last thirty five years. In the same way we expect and look forward to the myriad ways our wonderful Father bestows blessings on us, we should expect He will constantly and continually be dealing with our character. (Giving us opportunities to identify and pray for change in our inconsistencies.)

Much is made of the power of God, for good reason. But no-one likes to bite into a cherry or an apple and find it bad inside. These wonderful saints walking in the miraculous are proof that God wants US to walk in the miraculous too. ("These signs SHALL FOLLOW...") But few of us live close enough to bite into the fruit of their lives daily. Consequently, when one or another Christian leader falls publically into sin, we feel disillusioned and betrayed. A wise person once said to me: "If you are disillusioned it means you were under an illusion in the first place." I believe the illusion is that we think miracles in someone's life mean character. And they don't. We all need to grow up and understand that people who are in the public arena in this fashion are under more temptation and more pressure than we see in every day life! In other words, we should pray for those people we know and respect who are walking in things we do not have at this stage.

And lastly, the best "insurance" against falling into severe sin is the fruit of the Spirit. This means that others can testify about you that you have it because they have seen this fruit in your life and tasted it for themselves. Bless you.