Christ in Combat – Defense by The Spirit

This morning on my ride to work I listened to John piper give a message entitled Christ in Combat – Defense by The Spirit the passage was Luke 4:1-12. He starts with Jesus being filled with The Holy Spirit, this is really important because if Christ was filled and lead by The Holy Spirit then so should we be. Piper says that if even Jesus depended on The Holy Spirit we would be fools not to. John moves on the why would the spirit lead Jesus off to be alone and fasting. John shared that times of ministry must be preceded with times of solitude to keep us focused on God and that Jesus fasted to build up spiritual strength by subjecting His body to His will. He then pointed out that Satan when grappling with a strong saint doesn’t waste time on little stuff, he shoots straight for religion and quotes the bible at them. In conclusion, and it was a good one, he said that all Satan’s temptations of Jesus and many of them for the United States today where/are aimed keeping us from suffering in the here and now. Satan wants to keep us safe (un-serving) satisfied (un-praying) and not a threat to him at all. Once he has us there he can run our lives into the ground whenever he pleases. It has me seriously thinking about fasting to get my gluttony and sexual sin under the control of The Holy Spirit. These are my thoughts of what was said not “” which is why I didn’t use “”.