Swallowing up the Idols

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the devil started by challenging Jesus’s deity: “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread†(Matthew 4:3). Because Jesus is God, He could have turned the stones into bread. (And because Jesus is human, He was very hungry after not eating for forty days.) But Jesus didn’t need to prove that He is the Son of God. He simply answered, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’†(Matthew 4:4). Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1-14), and He used God’s written Word to resist the devil’s temptation.

Sin, or going our own way against God, leads to death, so it makes sense that a loving God would not want us to sin. On our own, we can’t resist temptation. Only Jesus could do that, and He set us free from the power of sin when He died and rose from the dead. If we’ve put our trust in Jesus, we are totally forgiven for all our sin, and God empowers us to stop sinning. His Holy Spirit is in us, helping us turn away from sin and instead come to Jesus. He empowers us to stand against the devil with our offensive weapon: “The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God†(Ephesians 6:17).

We can become more familiar with God’s written Word (the Bible) by reading it for ourselves and talking about it with other Christians. God calls us to be in community, reminding each other of His faithfulness and encouraging one another to resist temptation. And God gave us a promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.â€

Sometimes I submit to temptation because I don’t look for the “way out†that God has promised me. Yet I can always ask the Holy Spirit to help me be aware of when the devil is tempting me, and I can rely on Jesus to help me resist that temptation. God will do this because He is faithful to keep His promises. • Sharon J. Morris

• Sometimes we sin because we don’t trust that God will satisfy all our needs. When Jesus was in the wilderness, how did God meet His needs?

I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11 (NLT)

Read Verses:

Deut.5.6-Deut.5.10|Acts.19.8-Acts.19.20|Heb.12.1-Heb.12.3|Exod.20.3