When Jesus was "led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil," he asserted his inseparability from his heavenly Father by quoting Scripture, including "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." No wonder we read a few verses later, "Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."See Matt. 4:1-11; cf. Deut. 6:16 This report is many centuries old, but Jesus' example has lost none of its relevance for today.
Accordingly, we do well when we see trouble ahead to remain alert to our true, spiritual nature and also to the falsity of the error against which we need to defend ourselves. If we regard ourselves as struggling mortals, grimly holding on to the cliff of spirituality by our fingernails, liable at any moment to drop into the abyss of error, we are not in a good position to repulse the devil's attacks.
Happily, however, we can know that such a picture is never true of us or anybody else. We can humbly follow Christ Jesus' example and assert our unity with the heavenly Father as His likeness; we can gratefully exercise our prerogative of freedom and dominion. Success in the battle doesn't depend on our own ability to fight nor on our own courage. It depends solely on our God-derived strength and purity. As children of God, wholly spiritual, we can no more fall from perfection than can Almighty God Himself. This fact, realized, gives us divine strength.
