THINK TOGETHER.
Have you ever been tempted to do something wrong?
READ TOGETHER.
Matthew 4:1. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.
This verse comes right after Jesus was baptized. At Jesus’ baptism the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven onto Jesus, the heavens opened up and God the Father said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”
It can sure seem strange that after such a special moment at Jesus’ baptism, the next thing that happens to him is that the Holy Spirit leads him into a place where he will be tempted by the devil. Shouldn’t the Holy Spirit be leading Jesus away from the devil. If God the Father loves Jesus, why would he let him go into a place where he would face such hard things.
Three times the devil will tempt Jesus. After praying and fasting (not eating anything) for 40 days, Satan will tempt Jesus to turn the stones into bread. Next Satan will tempt Jesus to jump off a building to see if God will protect him. And finally, Satan told Jesus that he would give him all the kingdoms of the world if he simply would bow down to Satan.
All of the devil’s temptations were meant to make Jesus doubt God’s love. Why would a loving Father make you go into the desert to starve? Worse yet, why would a loving Father ask his only Son to die on the cross before he deserves to rule the world? Satan wanted Jesus to doubt God’s love and his plan.
And that is exactly what Satan wants you to doubt too. The devil is constantly trying to make you think, “If God is good, why is life so bad/hard/sad?” Once we doubt God’s goodness, then we are likely to disobey God and try to find ways to fix everything ourselves. Like if someone is mean to us, why not be mean back? Why should we obey God and be nice and forgiving? If God was good he wouldn’t let other people be mean to us, would he?
The answer is, yes. Yes, God is good. And, yes, he lets bad things happen to us. Why? Because those bad things, just like they did for Jesus, cause us to trust in God even more. Each time Jesus was tempted, he quoted a Bible verse and chose to trust in God. The testing of Jesus’ faith proved that he was perfect and able to die on the cross for our sins.
And the testing of your faith is making you perfect. It is making you more and more like Jesus – able to follow God’s plan even when it doesn’t always seem to make sense. Like loving someone who is mean to you, or being honest when one little lie doesn’t seem to matter, or trusting that Jesus loves you, even when it is really hard to feel like he does.
Like Jesus, we WILL be tempted. But like Jesus, we will always have the Holy Spirit with us reminding us of God’s love for us and that his way is better than anything the devil can offer.
Because of the Holy Spirit even when we are tempted we are still saved.
With the Holy Spirit we can listen to God instead of the devil.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Memorize James 4:7b “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
PRAY TOGETHER
Father, help me to resist the devil’s temptation and lies by trusting that you love me. Amen.
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