I like money.  I love ministry and missions.  Ministry and missions require, to one degree or another...money.  I have learned over the years that money makes a great slave but a terrible master.  It is amazing how hard it is to keep money "in it's place."  I didn't mean that the "place" is in the bank or in my wallet.  I did mean keeping money in its place as a servant and not a master.  Money promises many of the same things that God promises.  The problem is, God can deliver and money cannot!  So what are we to do with these greenbacks, these rubles, these pesos and sawbucks?  One of the ways we can make money work for us is by giving it away to assist in the advancement of the Lord's work.  Jesus taught that we could actually lay up treasure in heaven and have some secure investments for eternity.  Jesus loves us and wants our investments to last!  So, what I like...money and what I love...ministry and missions can work wonderfully together.  I can give what I only like to further what I really love and not lose the thing I like and have more of what I love!  Wow, that's quite the deal.  This coming Sunday is my annual Money Sermon.  I always preach a message about money the Sunday before our Missions Emphasis so we will hopefully take a look at where we are investing our money and consider the long term gains.  Jesus is not against investing...He simply wants us to have dividends that are out of this world  .

Matthew 4 is the record of an epic conflict between the kingdom of Light and the kingdom of darkness.  The temptation of Christ is so marked by intrigue that even Hollywood has jumped in with their "visual extrapolation."  The Biblical record only has 11 verses in Matthew but it is packed with relevance for us...not only in how to respond to temptation but what Jesus' response says about Him.   We tend to think of epic conflict in violent terms.  Usually there are armies, swords, guns, fights, blood and sweat.  In this epic conflict there are---words.  This conflict is a lot more like our own conflict!  Most of us are not super-heroes engaged in hand to hand combat in an attempt to save the world from a cruel villian.  Most of us are fighting concepts, ideas and suggestions that run counter to God's revealed and expressed will.  Many of us are in the fight every day though on the outside we may not show any signs of the conflict.  Internally however we may be battered and bruised as we fight the solicitations of our own flesh and the world to take life into our own hands.  Our epic battles are not in books or on big screens.  Our epic battles do not bring the accolades of the Hollywood actor who fakes epic conquest with the help of special effects     .  We just keep doing each day what Jesus modeled...applying the truth of God's Word to the lies of the enemy.  We don't do it as well as Jesus.  In fact, as we will see on Sunday, this record of the temptation of Jesus was not to prove He is just like me...it is to reveal that He is not just like me!  He is the last Adam who came to rescue those under the curse of the first Adam.  Jesus did right what all the rest of us have done wrong...yet, He died for our sins!  Yes, Jesus is the Savior...and the Lord and the KING we need to lead us out of bondage and into the freedom God intended.  That's my King!