This from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening for today is a powerful reminder as we daily face the battle.

“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”
Matthew 4:1

A holy character does not avert temptation—Jesus was tempted. When Satan tempts us, his sparks fall upon tinder; but in Christ’s case, it was like striking sparks on water; yet the enemy continued his evil work. Now, if the devil goes on striking when there is no result, how much more will he do it when he knows what inflammable stuff our hearts are made of. Though you become greatly sanctified by the Holy Ghost, expect that the great dog of hell will bark at you still. In the haunts of men we expect to be tempted, but even seclusion will not guard us from the same trial. Jesus Christ was led away from human society into the wilderness, and was tempted of the devil. Solitude has its charms and its benefits, and may be useful in checking the lust of the eye and the pride of life; but the devil will follow us into the most lovely retreats. Do not suppose that it is only the worldly-minded who have dreadful thoughts and blasphemous temptations, for even spiritual-minded persons endure the same; and in the holiest position we may suffer the darkest temptation. The utmost consecration of spirit will not insure you against Satanic temptation. Christ was consecrated through and through. It was his meat and drink to do the will of him that sent him: and yet he was tempted! Your hearts may glow with a seraphic flame of love to Jesus, and yet the devil will try to bring you down to Laodicean lukewarmness. If you will tell me when God permits a Christian to lay aside his armour, I will tell you when Satan has left off temptation. Like the old knights in war time, we must sleep with helmet and breastplate buckled on, for the arch-deceiver will seize our first unguarded hour to make us his prey. The Lord keep us watchful in all seasons, and give us a final escape from the jaw of the lion and the paw of the bear.

I know you all can’t wait to get my pick for Sunday’s Super Bowl. STEELERS it is. Had them picked early in the season–even over the unbeaten Colts. May be just wishful thinking on my part but it seems like its time for the Steelers. We’ll see. No Super Bowl party for us instead of church. But we’ll be recording the game to watch after our evening worship service–it’s better that way–no commercials or half-time show. Came across the Ben Roethlisberger Blog tonight.

For those of you who enjoy computers as I do, you might find this cool Mac Expose clone for the PC interesting–it’s called SmallWindows–it’s still in beta but works pretty well. I’m usually running five or six or ten applications at a time–especially since I just added a gig of ram to my workhorse notebook–so this is a fun tool that makes switching between open windows a breeze–no pun intended. I loaded it up last night and was showing the guys the cool application switching action and I was getting a bunch of oohs and aahs.

And my oldest son, Kevin, pointed me to the ESV Bible Firefox Plugin. If you use Firefox as your web browser–if you don’t you should–the plugin adds the ESV Bible to the list of available searches in the search menu bar.

Pray for me if you think about it this week as I prepare messages for Sunday. We’ll be in Acts 9 in the morning and I’ll be continuing a series on spiritual warfare in the evening. (When you’re preaching on spiritual warfare you definitely don’t cancel the service for a Super Bowl party.)