When Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible states that God tempted Abraham, it merely means God tried Abraham's faith as a goldsmith tries gold in the fire; there is a world of difference between God trying His people and inciting their corruption.
Coming more precisely to the subject of temptation, here are a few basic principles:
1. - Temptation comes from the duality or complexity of our nature. We are not simple creatures like crystals, but rather a compound of body and soul, matter and spirit. The human personality is like a driver in a chariot, as Plato suggested. Before him are two headstrong steeds: one is the animal urge with us, and the other the spirit. The charioteer, or the driver, has great difficulty to get both steeds headed in the same direction.
Though modern psychology has done much to develop the nature of this tension, it must not be thought that the tension inside man was not known in the past. The greatest of Greek dramatists, Sophocles, wrote of the great primeval disharmony that it was "grave with age and infected all men." Ovid, the Latin poet, wrote: "I see and approve the better things of life, but the worse things in life I follow."
Every human beings in the world can bear witness to the civil war which goes on inside his being. Good people sometimes act like bad people; very bad people, in certain circumstances, will act like good people. Goethe regretted that God had made him only one man. There was enough material in him for both a saint and a villain.
2. - It must not be thought that origin of temptation is solely to be sought in the individual human personality. If the origin were wholly within the person, it is conceivable that some would be without temptation; but there is no one in the world who is not tempted - absolutely no one. The nature of the temptation may vary one from another, and they may even vary with age. Confucius divided temptations into three different stages of human life: in youth man is tempted to lust, in middle age to pride and power, and in old age to avarice or greed. No one tells the full story of temptation by seeking its origin in a grandfather or a grandmother, or too much love for a father or too little love for a mother, crowded tenements, low calorie diet or insufficient education.
3. - The true origin of the conflict is not to be found in the individual exclusively but in human nature. This assumes there is a difference between "nature" and "person". Nature answers to the question, "What is it?" A person answers to the question, "Who is it?" A pencil is not a person. An atom is not a person. John Jones is a person. Something has happened to disturb the original human nature so that it is now neither an angel nor a devil. Human nature is not intrinsically corrupt (as some theologians claimed, more than 400 years ago) nor is it intrinsically divine (as philosophers began saying, more than 50 years ago) Rather, human nature has aspirations for good which it sometimes finds impossible to realize completely by itself; at the same time, human nature has inclinations to evil which solicit it away from these ideas.
It is like a man who is down a well of his own stupidity. He or She knows that he ought not to be there, but he cannot get out by himself. Or to change the picture, he is like a clock whose mainspring is broken. He needs to be fixed on the inside, but repairs must be supplied from without. He is a creature who can run well again, but only if Someone outside has the kindness to repair him. This Someone is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Redeemer of human nature. He came not to teach only but also to heal the breach caused by false freedom.
Many evil things are done quickly. Hence the Divine Savior/the Lord Jesus Christ, the night of the Last Supper, said to Judas Iscariot who was about to betray Him: "What you are going to do, do quickly." Satan on the mount of temptation tried to induce the Lord Jesus Christ to a short cut of saving people, and not by the Cross of Redemption. Satan promised all the kingdoms of the world "now." The reward for leaving evil in the hearts of people was the immediate delivery of political powers of earth.
Impatience or precipitous hurry is related to pride and to egotism. The annoyance felt at the cold coffee, the late morning newspaper, the delay in the appointment, all betray that the ego is considered that which must be served immediately.
The business person is always in a hurry; even his or her pleasures are fast. He does not taste food; he gulps it. He waits not for fruit; he plucks blossoms. About the only patience he has, and it is not true patience, is waiting for the stock market to go higher. This is really not patience, but a haunting quest for "more."
Youth too, has something of this impatience in its precociousness as regards pleasure. At an early age youth can feel already jaded, among some of life's sensible experiences. There is a lust of finishing life, even before it has begun. That is why there is such a love of speed, for the speed of youth is not to get to a certain point, but to show impatience with life.
Despite the American love of hurry, in the New Testament alone there is a recommendation to patience more than thirty times. Patience is not a passivity, but a strong endurance in the face of seeming defeat and disappointment; it is a refusal to be crushed by the blows of circumstances.
Two of the famous expressions are: "He who believes, does not hasten," and "In your patience, possess your souls." The possession of the soul describes the state in which a person has full command and undisturbed enjoyment of himself in opposition to outside influences, which disturb and decompose his peace of mind. Vain is wealth and prosperity and even health when unrestrained violence of temper becomes a source of disturbance and vexation. The loud complaint, the querulous temper and the fretful spirit disgrace character and show that the mind is unmanned by misfortunes.
There are many who excuse themselves, saying that if they were in other circumstances they would be much more patient. This is a grave mistake, for its assumes that virtue is a matter of geography and not of moral effort. It makes little differences where we are; it all depends on what we are thinking. What happens to us is not so important as how we react to what happens. Patience is not absence of action. It waits for the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way.
Patience is not insensibility. It is a result of thought. It is a very active bearing up of oneself under the pressure of calamity. Every person has a soul to save, but this cannot be done except by steadfast loyalty to the highest and the best. Patience then is a submissive waiting, a frame of mind which is willing to wait because it knows Whom it serves, because it is willing to endure in gratitude to God Who endured all, and also because the soul is worth more than the universe.
What often passes as religion is nothing but ethics and natural morality. Religion as a Divine force implies something that is non-human; namely, a gift from above [God] which can be accepted or rejected. God in some way enlightens the mind to see a truth that was never seen before; He strengthens the will to do things about it that were never done before, thus setting before us motives which will persuade the will to accept what is freely given. This gift is called 'grace' because gratis.
The grace of God is like the light of the sun which is outside the window. If the blinds of our will are down, or if the windows are dirty because of our behavior, the light will not come in. Human cooperation is, therefore, essential for the entering into a higher and Diviner life than the merely human. All this is a very mysteriously and slow process. In the springtime the fields are arrayed in their beautiful vesture, but one cannot see the power of God raising the sap through root and fibre, along stem and branch, and unfolding each bud and blossom.
So it is with the work of salvation. No angels announced that God has commenced His earthly life. He who, however, begins to be responsive to the gift, immediately sees that there are tremendous obstacles to be surmounted, mountains of pride and self-righteousness to be laid low, prejudices to be swept away. The consideration that God works in the soul leaves it without either excuse for negligence or ground for despondency.
Anyone with psychological insight can see a kind of interaction going on inside of himself. On the one hand there is the overcoming and the casting out of evil, and on the other, there is the assimilation and unfolding of good. It is like passing from disease to health. There is a joint working of God and man, man being able to do his part because God works, and God's working requires man's cooperation. The food in our stomach will not avail us for health, unless the organism cooperates. We must at least be able to digest it. God can no more become the spiritual life, light and strength of the soul any more than undigested bread can become the staff of life.
Most human beings refuse to allow Divine workings in their souls because it requires a change of behavior. The result is continued mediocrity and ordinariness. Man without the grace of God is like a body without food. What a starving man is, such is man without God. It would be foolish for a starving man to say: "I cannot take any food until I am stronger." How could he expect to be strong without food: One cannot feed on oneself. That is why humanism is insufficient. God is waiting to do His Part; we in secret either cooperate or lose the benefit.
BY ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN ( 1895 to 1979 )
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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