The Desert After the Mountain

“At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert…”
Mark 1:12

In the verses preceding this one, we see the Trinity clearly portrayed:  Jesus the Son is baptized, the Spirit descends as a dove, and God the Father speaks words of blessing from heaven.  Surely, a majestic moment! A moment for Jesus, in His humanity and His deity, to savor.  But like many of our spiritual “highs,” it was followed by an immediate challenge:  His testing in the desert.

Note that verse 12 clearly says he was SENT to the desert.  The time of testing and temptation by Satan didn’t just happen to Jesus.  It was orchestrated.  Planned.  Allowed.  Is it possible, then, that temptations are also allowed in our lives for a specific purpose?  We often wail, “God, why did you allow this to happen?”  Right question. Wrong attitude.  Instead, perhaps our response should be, “God, why did you allow this to happen?  What can I learn from it?  How you can be glorified in it?” 

The gospel of Mark doesn’t give much detail on what those 40 days looked like for Jesus, but we can flip over to Matthew for some insight.  And we see there that Satan comes to Jesus the same way he comes to us.  He tries to play on our vulnerabilities.  Jesus was hungry. He had fasted for 40 days. He had the power to turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger, but to do so would have given in to the temptation of Satan.  Jesus resisted.

The gospel of Matthew records Satan’s words to Jesus:  “If you are the Son of God…” He uses this ploy twice:

If you are the Son of God…turn these stones into bread.
If you are the Son of God…throw yourself down.

Satan tries to get Jesus to doubt His very identity.  And – he does the same to us! He only has so many tricks in his play book…and he just keeps recycling and re-using them.

He wants you and me to doubt our identity in Christ.  He wants to come at us…tell us we aren’t good enough…aren’t worthy enough…that we aren’t really God’s child…we really don’t have a relationship with Jesus…he tries to whisper that God has forgotten us…doesn’t love us…

Our response needs to be the same as that of Jesus:  “It is written…” Jesus responded to temptation by quoting Scripture.  The Word of God is our defense in the desert!

The temptations we face are spiritual battles.  They cannot be fought in the flesh.  We need the Word of God. Like Jesus, we claim the truth of Scripture as we proclaim:  IT IS WRITTEN!

For whatever your challenge today, ask Jesus to provide a passage to address it, to refute the lie, and help resist the temptation.

The woman of God proclaims IT IS WRITTEN when battling temptation!

{If you are reading through Mark with us, please read Mark 1:9-15 this week.  Here is the recorded teaching lecture on this passage:  http://fbcsiloam.podbean.com/2013/09/05/ladies-bible-study-mark-lesson-two-mark-19-15-laura-macfarlan-9-5-13/ }