Our series during Ordinary time will explore the revelation of God’s Kingdom through his Son. We will look specifically how the incarnation—the ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ—reveals the long-promised Kingdom of God breaking into human history demonstrating God’s love, destroying the powers that ravaged creation, and displaying the Messiah’s promise (to continue reading this essay, click on image above).
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YOUR KINGDOM COME
Pastoral Resources | 2025-26 Themes At-A-Glance
Week 31: Holy Spirit — The Messiah’s Temptation: The King’s Victory Over Satan, Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13
Driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, Jesus confronts the tempter where the first Adam and faithless Israel fell. Hungry, alone, and assailed at every point—appetite, ambition, and allegiance—the Messiah answers each assault with the written Word, refusing to yield to the tempter’s lies, persevering through the Word of God. As the true and obedient Son of the living God, Jesus the King won the decisive opening victory over Satan, proving his readiness to inaugurate God’s Kingdom and reclaim what the devil had taken through the rebellion of the first human pair and Israel the nation. The Lord Jesus recapitulated (relived and restored) the failing journeys of Adam and Israel, establishing a new humanity based on his obedience to the will of the Father.
Our Focus Today
The Second Temptation: the Enemy’s Appeal to Ambition, Luke 4:5-8
Satan offered to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, tempting Jesus to take a shortcut to his kingdom rule, bypassing the Cross. The price of the shortcut was for Jesus to worship Satan. Jesus answered him from Deuteronomy 6:13: worship and service belong to God alone. Jesus refused to gain his inheritance on the enemy’s terms.
Invocation
Lord God, you alone are worthy of my worship and my service. There are no valid shortcuts to accomplishing your will or glorifying your name. When the enemy dangles before me good things by crooked means, guard my heart by your Holy Spirit from every shortcut that would divide my devotion. Teach me, like you did, Lord Jesus, to refuse the crown without the cross and to trust your appointed path. Keep my allegiance whole and fixed on you alone. Amen.
Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen, amen.
Chronological Scripture Readings for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the entire Bible in one year in chronological order.
Thursday: Zeph. 1-3; 2 Chron. 35.20-27; 2 Kings 23.29-30; Jer. 47-48
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Thursday: Psalm 2, 32, 62, 92, 122 and Proverbs 2
The Second Temptation: the Enemy’s Appeal to Ambition, Luke 4:5-8
Satan offered to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, tempting Jesus to take a shortcut to his kingdom rule, bypassing the Cross. The price of the shortcut was for Jesus to worship Satan. Jesus answered him from Deuteronomy 6:13: worship and service belong to God alone. Jesus refused to gain his inheritance on the enemy’s terms.
Reflection
The devil’s most dangerous temptations often offer good and rightful ends through corrupt and shortcut means. Jesus shows that even his destined inheritance was not worth seizing apart from the Father’s will, for divided worship forfeits everything. To live fully under the rule of God means that we must refuse every shortcut that asks us to compromise our sole allegiance to God, trusting that what is rightly ours will come to us along his appointed path and at his appointed time.
Engaging God’s Word Today
What rightful and good ambition are you tempted to pursue by a shortcut that quietly compromises your undivided worship of God—and are you willing to wait for his path, even when it leads through suffering rather than around it?
Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, The Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God,
Begotten of the Father before all ages,
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,
Begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father,
through Whom all things were made.
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became human.
Who for us too, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.
The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Who together with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who spoke by the prophets.
We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin,
and we look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the age to come. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.
Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Benediction
Lord God Almighty, you supplied for the need of your Son in your own timing and in your own way. Help me to leave this place, determined to go now and to worship you alone, serving you only. When the enemy offers me glory by compromised means, help me to choose your path though it leads through suffering, remembering that our true inheritance comes from your hand alone. May the King who refused the shortcut and embraced the Cross strengthen me today to keep my worship undivided and my allegiance pure. Amen.
Scripture Memory for this season
Colossians 2:13-15 (ESV): The Messiah on the Cross: The Kingdom’s Triumph Over Sin.
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Scripture Engagement
As disciples of Jesus, the Churches of Christ the King strongly seek to engage the Scriptures to discover the centrality of Christ and his Kingdom in the prophetic and apostolic writings. You will find a rich treasure of resources on engaging Scripture at the Center for Scripture Engagement of Taylor University.
Books We Are Reading this Church Year, and When
• The Most Amazing Story Ever Told, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Advent)
• Get Your Pretense On, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Christmas)
• Destined for the Throne, Paul Billheimer (during season of Epiphany)
• The Presence of the Future, George Eldon Ladd (during seasons of Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Ascension)
• Who Gets to Narrate the World?, Robert E. Webber (during seasons of the Coming of the Holy Spirit, and Headship)
• Thy Kingdom Come, Rev. Terry Cornett and Dr. Don Davis (during season of Harvest)
• The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd (during the seasons of Hope and Remembering the Saints, Exalting the King)
Book Reading Reflection: Destined for the Throne
(Reading “Who Gets to Narrate the World?” during season of Coming of the Holy Spirit and Headship)
Humanity, as I have already indicated, has rebelled against God’s purposes, not only personally but also in respect to the God-given task to unfold creation after God’s purposes. Men and women are in a horrible situation. There is nothing we can do to repair our relationship with God. We are bent toward living in rebellion against God. The only hope for humanity is in God. Only God can come to our rescue. Only God can restore the Garden. But God chooses to restore humanity not by a decree of reconciliation, not by a sentimental forgiveness, not by a soft love, but by entering into union with humanity. In Jesus, God comes in human skin to reverse the human condition and reconcile humanity to the Father. The reversal of the human plight of separation between God and humanity already began when Mary, called of God to bear the Christ, responded to the angel’s announcement “May it be to me as you have said” (Lk 1:38). In those words the reversal of sin began. From the moment of conception, the child conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary began to reverse the revolt of Adam and his entire posterity.
In his humanity as Jesus, God took into himself the rebellion of the first Adam and the consequence of his sin, which was death for us all. Not only was the decomposition of the human body taken into the humanity of Jesus but also the death that hung over all the earth, all culture-making, all cities and civilization. The violence that proceeds from the human heart and extends into the political, economic, institutional, familial and personal life of us all was received in the human body of Jesus. For he who was without sin was made sin for us all.
~ Webber, Robert E. Who Gets to Narrate the World?: Contending for the Christian Story in an Age of Rivals. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL: 2008. Electronic Edition. Location 362-70.
On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
God’s Love, Christ’s Grace, and the Spirit’s Fellowship, 2 Cor. 13:11-13.
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