Greg Laurie daily devotion - June 23, 2011

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Life in the Valleys

And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.” —Matthew 17:14–15

We will have our mountaintop experiences in life, but we can’t live off these alone. And at the bottom of every mountain, there is usually a valley.

After Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit came upon Him in the form of a dove, and God the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Then immediately after that, the Bible tells us, He went into the wilderness, where He was tested by the devil. So for Jesus, after the dove came the devil. After the mountaintop came the valley. After times of great blessing, there will be times of attack, times of difficulty, even times of temptation.

Waiting at the foot of the mountain after Jesus’ transfiguration was a great challenge. A father brought his demon-possessed child to Jesus. This man had tried everything. He didn’t know what else to do. He had reached a point of desperation.

The disciples didn’t know what to do either. They had been on the mountain with Jesus, but they couldn’t handle this. So Jesus touched this boy and transformed him. The Bible tells us that “Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour” (Matthew 17:18).

We can’t live on the mountaintop forever. We have to come down to the valleys, and that is where the great lessons of life will be learned. It is not necessarily more mountaintop experiences that we need in the Christian life; it is more day-to-day obedience in which we are walking by faith, not by feeling.

One day, Jesus will come for us. There will be no more temptation and no more sin waiting for us. We finally will arrive at that mountaintop, and we will never leave.

Summary Sentence: After times of great blessing, can come times of attack, times of difficulty and times of temptation.

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