In the first temptation the devil urged Jesus to display his divine power to meet the needs of his humanity. In the second the devil used the Scripture to urge Jesus to prove his professed dependence on the words of His Father by doing something presumptuous in the name of faith.

You can be saved, surrendered, and separated and still miss out on living in the will of God if your mind is not saturated with the Word of God. The Word is the means the Spirit uses to transform us into the image of Christ.

Living very practically surrendered is not just a "requirement" to be in full time service and especially to be a missionary but is a necessary step to living in the center of God's will for every believer. The heart of the surrender is a heart of worship not just of doing my duty.

Living in the center of God's will requires battling the pressure of our enemy the world. The world functions under the control of the devil and includes not just overarching alienation from God but the fads that reflect the spirit of the current age.

God wants you to experience life in the center of His will. He has outlined a proving process to that end. The Scripture first makes the assumption that those exhorted to apply the proving process are personal recipients of the mercies of God embraced through a saving faith. What are the marks of such a faith?

Job was godly and rich and the devil seized on this combination to claim Job was insincere and God had bribed Job into worshipping Him. God allowed Satan to afflict Job "without cause" in Job. Job grieved and yet still worshipped. What was the foundation of his worship?

The eternal Creator God would remain unknowable and as if a Supreme Being or Supernatural Force if it were not for Jesus's taking on man's form and living among men and revealing a person full of grace and truth

How did men respond to the claim Jesus is the Eternal God? How did men respond to the light that is in Jesus? How do those responses parallel the responses of the men of our day?

By virtue of being the Creator, Jesus is every man's light.

The true identity of Jesus is the foundation of the goodness of the Christmas story