On my recent study of Matthew one thing that stood out to me was the way in which Jesus was tested in the wilderness. On a day to day basis we are tested but it’s important that we get a number of things from this chapter.
The first thing we can get from reading this is that Jesus was allowed into the wilderness to be tested. There are times in our life where God will intercede and will stop us from being tested but in this situation it’s quite interesting to see that Jesus was led by the spirit to the wilderness. It’s important that we see that God ‘allowed’ this.
In many tough times we can sit back and ask ourselves, why does God allow this to happen. It is also important to remember that God has some tests of our own to go through. Recently I’ve been allowed to be tested and I’ll be honest, I’ve failed a couple of these tests but I’m thankful that I have Jesus there to redeem me. I’m also thankful that I’ve been able to take something from each test even if I’m not fully over it.
Now for some of the important things we fail to look at. I’ve read this scripture a number of times but I hadn’t really looked at the way Jesus was tested. Why is this important? Well, if you look at the things that Jesus was asked to do you’ll see why. Now the first thing that Jesus was asked to do was to turn stone to bread. You could argue that there wasn’t really much wrong with doing this but the point behind it was that the ‘tempter’ was trying to get Jesus to question his relationship with God.
Matthew 4 v 4 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Again, the tempter doesn’t give up. The second time around, he again repeats, ‘If you are the Son of God….’ I think it’s important to look at these verses of Chapter 4 because, God wants us to know that we’re loved and that we’re his children. I believe that the way in which Jesus is tempted holds to key to what we need to hold onto. Satan wants us to believe that we’re not children of God. His temptation will come in the form to make use doubt this. He will use our relationship with God as a weapon against us.
Coming to this scripture has really stirred me and it’s made me see how in all of our temptation the one thing that the enemy wants us to do is to make us feel unloved, rejected or to doubt our relationship with God. It also demonstrates how persistent the enemy can be. I can think back to times where I’ve been condemning myself after feeling like the fight was over and then ‘bam’ I was hit again. The enemy would use his attacks to make me feel bad for letting him in. He’s so manipulative but we must remember that God’s love is stronger than all of this. Satan may come at us time and time again, but if we’re willing to listen so does Gods love.
Even when I’ve been at my lowest points, I can testify that God’s love will break through all of it. Last week, I decided to cut off my fellowship because of ‘lie’ which made me feel horrible. I decided to take a step back, but God took a step forward. I didn’t listen to him on the first couple of messages but God didn’t give up on me. He put people, scripture, students and other signs in my way to bring me back.
In summary, there are two important things that we can take from this scripture. The first, we’re going to be tempted and don’t be surprised if it’s questions about our relationship with our Father. He doesn’t want us to believe that we’re a child of God. He didn’t want Jesus to believe this and this is why he was tested in this way. When this happens, write down what you are thinking in your journal. During the moment, if you read anything along the lines of ‘I want to be alone’, ‘I feel rejected’ or ‘I need a break’. Remember you do not need a break from God’s love. Fight the lie!
The second, God will not give up on us. God will keep coming back for you if you let him in. Although the enemy is persistent, God is bigger and he will keep come back stronger if we listen.
I pray that in difficult times, in times when we’re fed lies to make us want to be a lone that we can see that God’s love is bigger. God’s love is more persistent than the tempter and that we remember that we’re always children of God.
Lanky "Disciple" Ray 