Led by the Spirit

2012 Lent A Clean Heart, Create in Me C.S.Lewis Happy Little Easter! Sunday, February 26th Luke 4:1-2 "The long terrible story of humanity trying to find something other than God to make us happy." "God designed the human machine to run on God's self." Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert place where he was tempted by the devil for a long time. But led and fueled by the spirit he overcame the temptations of humanity and was refined, honed to sharpness, tempered into compassion itself. Jesus was not seeking peace or happiness in the desert but God's will and a testing of his faith in that will. The peace Jesus found was the assurance that humanity could be sustained by the Spirit. Where the Spirit leads there are trials and temptations but also salvation and hope. Where the Spirit leads our self-made castles crumble and we become servants and heirs to the eternl kingdom. Man does not live by bread alone, but on every Word from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4) That phrase "every Word from the mouth of God" obviously alludes to Jesus himself, the Word of God, yet it also points to the breath of God, love's own spirit, that breathes life into our dead dried bones. In Genesis it says that God spoke the world into being, and it is that sustenance tht Jesus relies on in the desert. So let us be a spirit led people, who walk into lonely desert places, not unaware and unafraid, but secure in the knowledge of the care and support we will receive and the promised outcome when we are led back out, a new creation, with a clean heart. Be led.