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 Third Temptation: The Enemy’s Appeal to Allegiance and Presumption, Luke 4:9-12
Satan invites Jesus as Messiah to take a spectacular, faith-proving plunge from the temple. Quoting Psalm 91, he invites Jesus to presume upon God’s protection, testing the Father to act in staged crisis. Jesus answers from Deuteronomy 6:16, reminding that no one should put the Lord your God to the test, distinguishing true faith from ungodly manipulation.
Invocation
Holy Father, teach me the difference between having a faith that trusts in your Word and your timing and a presumption that demands you act in my way and at my time. Help me Father when I find myself tempted to try to force your hand or twist your promises for my own ends. Please hold me as I reverently depend on you. Show me how to rest on your provision, like a child does on his parents. Let me rest in your sure Word without craving spectacle or proof. Keep me from testing you, that I may simply trust you. 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.
Friday: 2 Chron. 36.1-5; 2 Kings 23.31-24.4; Jer. 22.1-23; Jer. 26
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Friday: Psalm 3, 33, 63, 93, 123 and Proverbs 3
The Third Temptation: The Enemy’s Appeal to Allegiance and Presumption, Luke 4:9-12
Satan invites Jesus as Messiah to take a spectacular, faith-proving plunge from the temple. Quoting Psalm 91, he invites Jesus to presume upon God’s protection, testing the Father to act in staged crisis. Jesus answers from Deuteronomy 6:16, reminding that no one should put the Lord your God to the test, distinguishing true faith from ungodly manipulation.
Reflection
The Kingdom involves trusting the will of God in all things, clinging to his way and rule regardless of what we face. Genuine faith trusts God’s promises within his will; presumption seizes those promises to force God’s hand on our own terms. When we fail to follow the Spirit, we can even twist Scripture to baptize recklessness, seeking to justify our own manipulative behavior. Kingdom life learns to rest in God’s care without provoking him to act through foolhardy actions; we must refuse to manufacture crises that test his faithfulness and rather learn to trust in his revealed Word and his leading and timing.
Engaging God’s Word Today
Where might you be tempted to “test” God—demanding a sign or manufacturing a crisis to prove his care—rather than resting in his revealed Word and his timing to act? How can you tell the difference in your own heart between bold faith and subtle presumption?
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
Thank you Lord God Most High, for the promises you have given to your people in your Word. Teach me by your Spirit to walk in quiet confidence, resting in you, the God whose care needs no testing and who has proven countless times to meet my need. When the enemy tempts me to bend Scripture toward presumption, hold me fast to the truth in holy reverence for you, learning to trust your Word rather than demanding proof or some dramatic show. Let your faithful Son, who would not tempt you, his Father, keep me in genuine faith and bring me safely through every trial as I wait on you. 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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