Opportune Times
Published by Korey Buchanek under on 9:32 AM
January 5, 2016
It's been quite a while since my last post. Four years to be exact and more life than I care to write about. Today I find myself wrestling with the reality that I have an enemy that despises the King I worship, which in turn produces a hatred toward me. Luke 4:13 points to an interesting truth that is easily missed at first glance. After forty days in the wilderness and temptation from every angle, Jesus demonstrates the power of the written Word. At each temptation he quotes scripture to address the attacks and lies of the enemy, but that is not what catches my attention as much as the final statement.
In verse thirteen of chapter four it says, "When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time." We get this idea that the devil tried and failed in the temptation of Christ, and that he gave up and when his own way. However, what scripture tells us here is that he's much more cunning and persistent to just give up. He left Him until an opportune time. He recognized that his future would provided moments of weakness and pain, moments of hurt and sorrow, in which the enemy would wait for. We know that even at the cross the enemy tried to speak lies into the mind of Christ and at his weakest moment he stayed focused on His calling.
The question is, "What are the opportune times in my present future that the enemy is waiting for?" I have to admit that if I'm attempting big things for the cause of Christ and I'm preaching the gospel, the redemptive story, to see lives transformed then the enemy is going to recognize the opportune times in my life to bring my world crashing down. I recognize that with some this thought may produce fear or anxiety, but those emotions are not the emotions of the Holy Spirit in my life. "For my God has not given me the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." No, my thought is focused on the opportune time. What does opportune timing look like in my schedule? What does it look like in my fatigue or my morally nurtural things that I give myself to: sports, recreation, friendships. Things that are not bad in and of themselves, but things that produce a laziness in my life that cause my eyes to be taken off the written Word of God.
I write today to remind myself that an opportune time could be today. An opportune time could be in one of my finest hours. Today I take every thought captive. I stand on the written Word.
It's been quite a while since my last post. Four years to be exact and more life than I care to write about. Today I find myself wrestling with the reality that I have an enemy that despises the King I worship, which in turn produces a hatred toward me. Luke 4:13 points to an interesting truth that is easily missed at first glance. After forty days in the wilderness and temptation from every angle, Jesus demonstrates the power of the written Word. At each temptation he quotes scripture to address the attacks and lies of the enemy, but that is not what catches my attention as much as the final statement.
In verse thirteen of chapter four it says, "When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time." We get this idea that the devil tried and failed in the temptation of Christ, and that he gave up and when his own way. However, what scripture tells us here is that he's much more cunning and persistent to just give up. He left Him until an opportune time. He recognized that his future would provided moments of weakness and pain, moments of hurt and sorrow, in which the enemy would wait for. We know that even at the cross the enemy tried to speak lies into the mind of Christ and at his weakest moment he stayed focused on His calling.
The question is, "What are the opportune times in my present future that the enemy is waiting for?" I have to admit that if I'm attempting big things for the cause of Christ and I'm preaching the gospel, the redemptive story, to see lives transformed then the enemy is going to recognize the opportune times in my life to bring my world crashing down. I recognize that with some this thought may produce fear or anxiety, but those emotions are not the emotions of the Holy Spirit in my life. "For my God has not given me the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." No, my thought is focused on the opportune time. What does opportune timing look like in my schedule? What does it look like in my fatigue or my morally nurtural things that I give myself to: sports, recreation, friendships. Things that are not bad in and of themselves, but things that produce a laziness in my life that cause my eyes to be taken off the written Word of God.
I write today to remind myself that an opportune time could be today. An opportune time could be in one of my finest hours. Today I take every thought captive. I stand on the written Word.
