Skip to main content

The First Temptation (Selfish Desire)

And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ ”
Matthew 4:2‭-‬4 NASB1995
The devil tempted Jesus with bread (food) because he knew Jesus had a desire for it at the time. After not eating for 40 days & nights, our Lord was hungry. And the tempter tempted Him with food. Telling Jesus Christ to turn stones into bread. As a man, he was tempted. Where did the temptation come from? From his desire (James 1:14).

Jesus did not give in to this. He delayed gratification. He knew not falling for this temptation will mean he not carrying out His purpose. His answer to the tempter was this, "man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."

Man shall not live by satisfying his fleeting desires alone but man can surely live solely on the Word of God. On His way to Samaria together with the 12, our Lord sent the disciples to go buy food in the nearby town. He encountered a Samaritan woman and proved Himself to be the Christ. 
His disciples got back to give Jesus food and his response was this "I have food that you know not of." (John 4:32). "What food?" One may ask - the Word of God. That was our Lord's daily bread. He needed spiritual food. From His conversations we see He spent more time in God's Word and it was good enough.

Study His word. Abide in Him. And He will abide in you. Abide in His Word. Obey His word.

The tempter will come seeking to devour and corrupt our very souls with the things that entice us, with the desires at a very moment, and if we give in to that, we have failed. He uses a thing we long for to drag us away. Our desires give birth to sinful actions, and when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. For that is the wages of sin, but it does not start as a bad thing, but mostly as a thing, we desire.

This is not to say all we desire is sin, but it surely can be. Eating is not a sin, but to Jesus at that moment, it was a sin.

Let us abide in the Word. Christ tells us to ABIDE in Him and He shall abide in us. For a branch cannot bear fruits by itself. We cannot do the Christian thing all alone. It is impossible. We need Christ! We NEED CHRIST.
Be subject unto God, resist the devil and he will flee. (James 4:7)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Photographers, How To Get Your Models (Clients) To Be On Time

Wait time fee is a per-minute charge which starts a few minutes after a driver arrives at your location and continues until the driver starts the trip. The fee helps to compensate for the driver’s efforts and time spent waiting. This is what modern taxis do. What I mean by modern taxis is the new transport services with the use of technology like Uber, Bolt, Yango and Taxify. You compensate the driver when you delay, or to simply put, you are charged a fee when you delay. As the old saying goes: “Time is money.” The Lombardi Time Vince Lombardi, the football coach was known for his punctuality. Lombardi time was defined as “fifteen minutes before the scheduled time.” If the bus was scheduled to leave at 9:00am, all the players were trained to be there at 8:45am. If you weren’t there, the bus would leave without you. How Can Photographers Practice This Simple. Make sure you communicate this in your contract or when you are speaking to any potential client. Be a pro! Make it known that ...

WE ARE LIVING IN THE RENAISSANCE

We live in a world where it is not impossible to be a renaissance person. What does it mean to be a renaissance person? The renaissance is associated with people who could and can do more than one thing very well especially when it comes to the arts. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Pablo Picasso are some of the few names that have been associated with the renaissance period. They were the universal men. The renaissance men of the past were men who were specialized in more than a thing. I know artists who think being an artist means sticking to one thing for the rest of your life. No, you can explore more and do more providing you have the skill and knowledge. I made a post on Instagram about photographers refusing to be called photographers because they think being called a photographer does not mean being an artist. In this post, I explained that being a photographer means being an artist, a visual artist for that matter. I got a comment from a photographer friend who said "I...

THE SINNERS' PRAYER DOESN'T SAVE YOU

Hey man! What do you mean? This is what most people have known their entire lives and they will fight (at worst) to defend this point. Salvation does not come by praying in some creed. Imagine if being saved came by reciting the apostles' creed. Doesn't match up, right? It's the same thing here, salvation does not happen because you repeated a prayer after some pastor in your church. In the church I used to be at, it was a normalcy. Every Sunday, there was an altar call. A call to save people from their sins by reciting the sinners' prayer, and after this is done, the preacher declares you saved. Interesting, because I thought only God could declare us saved. This is basically it: "Say with me" the preacher leading the congregation will say, "Lord Jesus" and the audience who responded to his altar call will repeat after him, "Lord Jesus." Then he will continue, "I invite you into my heart... Satan, I am no longer yours, I belong to God...