The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 4 is our reading this week.
After Jesus was baptized, he spent 40 days and 40 nights fasting in the wilderness.
It was then, when He was hungry and fatigued, that Christ was tempted by the devil, who offered him all sorts of privileges and favors if he would just succumb. Notice how subtle the devil is in his temptation.
Every time He was tempted, he quoted God’s Word to the devil. This serves, I believe, as a model for us, so that when we are tempted, we delve into our hearts and our memories of the Scripture to find strength.
First, the devil appealed to his bodily needs, food. He tells Jesus that if only He would abandon His reliance on God, trading that for temporary relief.
Next, he uses pride, suggesting the Jesus proves himself in his own strength, and in effect, to get him to boast about who is is and what he can do.
Then the devil tries to get Jesus to take matters into His own hands instead of leaving it to His Father. Jesus knew that jumping from the temple’s roof would not be an act of reliance on God, but an act of defiance, diverting Him from His mission.
It wasn’t time for Jesus to reveal Himself to the world yet.
If you look carefully at all of these temptations, you can see that what the devil was actually digging around to find the weak point in Jesus’s character. And that’s how he works, isn’t it? He tempts us using our own weaknesses to get us to abandon our trust and reliance on God and on Jesus Christ.
After these tests, He started His ministry, just as John the Baptist was arrested.
This chapter describes how His disciples ended up following Him, and the beginning of their travels, teaching, preaching, and healing people.
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