Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations. Luke 22:28

We are apt to imagine that our Lord was only tempted once and that then His temptations were over. His temptations went on from the first moment of His conscious life to the last, because His holiness was not the holiness of Almighty God, but the holiness of man, which can only progress by means of the things that go against it (see Hebrews 2:18; 4:15). Are we going with Jesus in His temptations? It is true that He is with us in our temptations, but are we with Him in His? Many of us cease to go with Jesus from the moment we have an experience of what He can do. Like Peter, we have all had moments when Jesus has had to say to us, "What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?"

Are we lazy spiritually because we are so active in God’s work? When the problems of the body face us, do we stop going with Jesus? Do we listen to the tempter’s voice to put our bodily needs first—"Eat bread, be well, first look after what you are going to wear, and then attend to God"? It is the most subtle voice any Christian ever heard, and whether it come through an archangel or through a man or woman, it is the voice of the devil. Are we going with Jesus along these lines, or are we putting our own needs and the needs of men and social reform first?

Satan does not come on the line of tempting us to sin, but on the line of making us shift our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil. It is the same in missionary enterprise and in all Christian work. The Church is apt not to go with Jesus in His temptations. The temptations of Our Lord in the days of His flesh are the kind of temptations He is subjected to in the temple of our body. Watch when God shifts your circumstances and see whether you are going with Jesus or siding with the world, the flesh and the devil. We wear His badge, but are we going with Him? "Upon this many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him."

The temptation may be to do some big startling thing in order to prove that we really are the children of God. Satan said to Jesus, "If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down from hence," and to us he says, "If you are saved and sanctified and true to God, everyone you know should be saved too." If that were true, Jesus Christ is wrong in His revelation of God. If by our salvation and right relationship to God, we can be the means of turning our world upside down, what has Jesus Christ been doing all these years? The temptation is to claim that God does something that will prove who we are and what He has done for us. It is a temptation of the devil, and can only be detected as a temptation by the Spirit of God.

Are we taking the pattern and print of our life from some booklet or some band of Christians, or are we continuing with Jesus, standing with Him in every new circumstance of life? It is there that we understand the fellowship of His sufferings, and the broader He makes our life and our mind and circumstances, the more essential does the one thing become—to continue with Him in His temptations.

Have we given God as much "elbow room" in our lives as Our Lord gave Him in His? Have we the one set purpose, which is only born in us by the Son of God, viz., not to do our own will but the will of God? ". . . that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." The temptations of Jesus continued all His earthly life, and they will continue all the time of His life in us. Are we going with Jesus in the life we are living now?

The temptation may be to compromise with evil—"Don’t be so tremendously strong against sin and in denouncing the pleasures and interests that make up this life as it is, and the whole world will be at your feet"! Jesus Christ was tempted like His brethren (see Hebrews 4:15), not like men who are not born again. When we are tempted as He was, do we continue to go with Him? What are we like where nobody sees? Have we a place in our heart and mind and life where there is always open communion between ourselves and God so that we can detect the voice of the devil when he comes as "an angel of light" ? Every temptation of the devil is full of the most amazing wisdom and the understanding of every problem that ever stretched before men’s view. Satan’s kingdom is based on wisdom, along the lines he advocates lies success, and men recognize this. Jesus Christ is not on the line of success but on the spiritual line, the holy, practical line and no other. If men and women do not continue to go with Jesus, they will begin to teach what undermines the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

"Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations." Are we compromising in the tiniest degree in mental conception with forces that do not continue to go with Jesus, or are we maintaining the attitude of Jesus Christ all through? Are we departing from Jesus in the slightest way in connection with the world to which we belong? Have we this past week choked the Son of God in our life by imperceptible degrees? Have the demands of the life of the Son of God in us been a bit too spiritual, too strong, too sternly holy, too sternly unworldly, too pressing, too narrow, too much in the eye of God only? or do we say "Yes, Lord, I’ll go with Thee all the way"?

I have made my choice for ever,
I will walk with Christ my Lord.

Watch where Jesus went. The one dominant note in His life was to do His Father’s will. His is not the way of wisdom or of success, but the way of faithfulness.

No matter what your circumstances may be, don’t try to shield yourself from things God is bringing into your life. We have the idea sometimes that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the circumstances God brings round us. Never! God engineers circumstances; we have to see that we face them abiding continually with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, they are not temptations to us, but to the Son of God in us. If you talk about the subtle temptations that come to you as a child of God to those who have not the life of the Son of God, they will laugh at you. We continually side with the prince of this world and have to be brought back to a spiritual stock-taking. Are we going with Jesus in His temptations in our bodies? Are we going with Him in the temptations of our mental and moral life, and of our spiritual life, abiding true to God all through? That is the one concern Jesus Christ has about us.

"Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations." Do you continue to go with Jesus? The way lies through Gethsemane, through the city gate, outside the camp; the way lies alone, and the way lies until there is no trace of a footstep left, only the voice—"Follow Me."

"As He is, even so are we in this world." Where is Jesus in this world? There is no outward manifestation of Jesus, and we are to be as He is, hidden, true, and absolutely loyal to God. Temptations do not come in fits and starts, they abide all the time, and to continue with Jesus in them is the way the holiness of our life is going to be to the glory of God.