August 10
On the same page
And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry…the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." Matthew 4:2-3 (NKJV)
After being led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, Jesus entered into a period of fasting and prayer for forty days. Then, just as His body was on the very verge of starvation, Satan came and tempted Him to miraculously transform the rocks around Him into bread.
If we possessed Christ's miraculous power, we may have bought into the devil's logic. "You know, I am about to die out here, and I am the Son of God…Why not use my own abilities to take care of myself?" Yet Jesus did something quite different. Instead of caving into the tempter's temptation, He quotes from an Old Testament passage in Deuteronomy:
But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'" Matthew 4:4 (NKJV)
Jesus does something each of us needs to do when faced with temptation. The divine plan wasn't for Jesus to miraculously provide for Himself but to completely rely on His Heavenly Father. So He responds to the temptation to deviate from the will of God by quoting the Word of God. Satan said to make bread, but Deuteronomy 8:3 said obedience to God's Word mattered more.
Twice more, Jesus responds to the devil's temptations by citing and standing on the Book of Deuteronomy. Each time, He showed He would follow what the Word said, not what Satan suggested.
When we are tempted to deviate from the will of God, we need to do as Jesus did. We need to simply go to the Bible and stand on it and even quote it if necessary. There's power in going to the scriptures. It puts us on the same page as our Heavenly Father, which is the only page worth being on.
Think About It…
What does this passage reveal to me about God?
What does this passage reveal to me about myself?
Based on this, what changes do I need to make?
What is my prayer for today?
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