This past week, on New Year's Eve in fact, I visited the desert (wilderness) of dry barren Arizona. Not a place I personally wanted to hang out very long. There isn't much life, and there's lots of creepy crawly dangerous insects and reptiles.
In today's reading in Matthew, I was reminded of Jesus wilderness experience and the temptations that Satan (the Serpent) brought against His flesh at His weakest point. After all, who can fight a battle when they haven't eaten for 40 days! Ahh...but Jesus had been eating...just not of the earthly kind of bread.
This story is so powerful though, because it reminds us how Satan works even now... for he knows that when we are hungry (physically, spiritually, and emotionally), we are at our weakest point and most likely to give into temptation. That's why we must keep eating our heavenly bread, or we too will fall when the temptations come.
The first temptation against Jesus is often the one Satan uses to fall us: "God's not taking care of you! He's forgotten you. Why don't you stop waiting on Him and make your own bread--work in your own strength." Thankfully, Jesus didn’t fall for this temptation, or for those that followed. As one author nicely puts it, “Jesus would rather be fed with the smallest crust of His Father’s Word than with an entire landscape of fresh bread from anywhere else.”[i]
Is this our desire as well? Are we so ravished by one look
at His face (Song 4:9), that we’d rather starve from man-made bread (lust of
the flesh, lust of the world, and pride of life) than be separated from His
presence?
After three attempts, Satan leaves. He cannot stand against the Word of God. And just as he
could not stand then, against “It is Written,” so he cannot stand today. Thus,
our only safety is in feeding on the Word of God and becoming so satisfied in
Him that we have no hunger for the temptations of sin.
Inspiration tells us, “Christ resisted the temptations of
the enemy with the only weapon that the soldier of the cross of Christ can
successfully use – ‘It is written.’ Where? In the Old and New Testaments. With
these words we are to defend ourselves and warn others, holding forth to them
the Word of life.”[ii]
Oh how I love feeding upon God's Word!
Small extra note: It's interesting that my reading in Genesis 9 kind of paralleled Matthew 4. Because of Noah catering to the "lust of his flesh" a curse came -- and from that curse came some of Israel's greatest enemies. Also came some of the greatest enemies of our spiritual growth today! Thankfully where Adam fell and Noah fell, Christ overcame.
Tomorrow's Reading: Gen. 12-13, and Matt. 5
Tomorrow's Reading: Gen. 12-13, and Matt. 5
Good morning,
ReplyDeleteI have the book Longing for God and am doing the Bible reading. It has been a struggle for me to get the deep things. Really appreciate your insights. I am grateful to God that with Him there can always be new beginnings and so these thoughts from sda commentary have been filling my mind all this week. "Genesis 1:2
1. In the beginning. These words remind us of the fact that everything human has a beginning. He alone who sits enthroned the sovereign Lord of time, is without beginning or end. The opening words of Scripture thus draw a striking contrast between all that is human, temporal, and finite, and that which is divine, eternal, and infinite. Reminding us of our human limitations, these words point us to Him who is ever the same, and whose years have no end (Heb. 1:10-12; Ps. 90:2, 10). Our finite minds cannot think of “the beginning” without thinking of God, for He “is the beginning” (Col. 1:18; cf. John 1:1-3). Wisdom, and all other good things, have their beginning with Him (Ps. 111:10; James 1:17). And if we are ever again to resemble our Maker, our lives and all our plans must have a new beginning in Him (Gen. 1:26, 27; cf. John 3:5; 1 John 3:1-3). It is our privilege to enjoy the confident assurance that “he which hath begun a good work” in us “will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). He is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). Let us never forget the sublime fact implicit in these words—“in the beginning God". God bless
Your friend on FB Lana