Luke 4:2 Forty days, being tempted by the devil

We don’t talk much about the devil any more.  Maybe it’s because we have become so sophisticated, at least in our own minds, that everything that goes wrong in our minds and our emotions can all be attributed to physical and psychological causes.

We have gone from everything is the devil or evil spirits to nothing is.

This is one reason why the Bible is so important.  There are just some things you’re not going to be able to figure out on your own about life.  Science can only deal with things that can be seen or measured. 

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the devil came to Jesus and tempted Him in basically three areas.

The first was in the area of physical needs, or you could even call it emotional need.  Jesus was hungry.  Very hungry.  Our bodies can have all kinds of cravings: sex, the need for recognition, companionship, hey, food and drink too, drugs, the need to feel good inside.

But Jesus said that man does not live by bread alone.  He is quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3, which goes on to say: “Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”

The Hebrew text has a different word order to emphasize different things. “Not by bread alone will live man (humans), but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord will live the man.

If we live our lives by what we perceive to be our needs, we can miss God’s best and play into the hands of the devil, who wants us to focus on ourselves and not God’s leading in our lives.

The second area is in the area of pubic recognition.  This need not be public acclaim and notoriety.  We need not be famous, but we all want to be somebody.  We don’t want to be ignored, unappreciated, especially when so many others who we know are no better than we are get recognized and promoted.  We want our lives to matter, but if nobody knows or sees us, it can be hard sometimes.

But Jesus said to the devil, and He might as well have said it to us: The Lord your God worship, and Him only you shall serve.  (Which is from Deuteronomy 6:13)

In other words, focus on God and let the rest take care of itself.  Israel had a problem, a common problem, that when they had success, they were tempted to think that they did it all on their own, that that too wasn’t a gift from God.  When we desire and seek to gain public recognition, fame, or just trying to gain attention in some way, again, we fall into the devil’s plans to keep us self-focused and not God-focused.

The third area has to do with someone who presumes on God.  Proverbs 3:5,6 says we are to trust in God with all our hearts and not, I repeat, not to lean on our own understanding.  In all, I repeat, all our ways acknowledge Him, and He himself will direct our paths.

Life isn’t all about choosing between good and bad, such that anything that is not bad is good.  When you seek God’s guidance in everything, you will find new possibilities opening up that you didn’t imagine before, that you wouldn’t have even known about if God didn’t lead you there.

So we can get involved in good things, but we miss God’s leading and God’s best.

This may sound like I’m making life more complicated.  No, it’s actually making life a lot easier.  God is far more willing to guide us in the small things than we think and to bring us that satisfaction that we need deep down.  He just wants to make sure that we are grounded in Him and not in ourselves.