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January 26, 2021

Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.

Reading along with us in Matthew? Here’s today’s reading:

Matthew 4 (NIV)

Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”........Continue Reading

Next: Matthew 5

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This Post Has 7 Comments
  1. Jesus tempted is such an inspiring look at how weak we are in comparison to Him. He remained strong and steadfast to His Father’s words and promises throughout all of Satan’s attempts to tempt Him to sin.
    I am also struck at the way His disciples just got up and followed Him. They set their old lives down and picked up and followed Him. Such an amazing show of faith and that faith was affirmed in Jesus’ teachings and miracles. Must have been so amazing to walk with Him and be a witness to His time here on earth.

  2. So the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted. This is a test.

    We pray, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
    “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

    Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth, because they are, at that point, Satan’s. One day the kingdoms of this earth will become the kingdoms of our Lord and Christ.
    “Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” Revelation 11:15

  3. So the one who had tried to disrupt the plans of God from the beginning now comes to tempt the Savior. Such a comfort that we cannot be tempted beyond what we can bear, that is when we rely on the power and influence of God. And so Satan comes in a moment of weakness, as he so often does, and suggests a way for Jesus to resolve His hunger. And Jesus responds with the Word and with it shows the true satisfaction of hunger. Satan then suggests Jesus treat frivolously the protection of God and with the Word Jesus shows that that is not how we engage with God’s power. It is up to Him how it is to be used and not to be tested when we have a whim to do so. Next satan appeals to Jesus’ pride and possible pursuit of power, presenting Him with what will eventually become His, but only by the way of the cross. Satan brokers it based on Jesus worshipping him. And with the word, Jesus affirms the truth that God alone is to be worshipped and thereby His plan and path will do just fine. In this Jesus shows that we don’t confront temptation without truth. Every temptation is a proposition to believe or do something that is wrong. It is to be confronted with the knowledge of what is true rather than with a void.

    After passing these tests and being ministered to by the angels (how neat for them, huh?), Jesus hits the ground running. He makes a wise decision based on an earthly circumstance (John in prison) and moves from his childhood home (Is that Jesus adulting? 🙂 ). Actually, not just that, but fulfilling prophecy for the area He would come from. And from that time He starts to preach…the kingdom of heaven is near…. And two inherent parts of His ministry are there from the beginning: selecting disciples and remedying various problems of the human condition, physical and spiritual. Jesus seeks to minister to the whole person. What a beautiful and competent Savior He is!

  4. 20At once they left their nets and followed him.
    21Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

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