Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Mark’s Gospel does not provide as much detail about the temptation of Christ as the longer Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Rather, Mark summarizes that Jesus was “tempted of Satan” (1:13b). One of the specific testings is recorded in Matthew 4:1-4. Here, we see that Jesus refused the temptation of selfishness. He had not eaten for “forty days and forty nights” and, in a fine use of Biblical understatement, “was afterward an hungred” (verse 2). It was at this moment of genuine physical need that Satan said, “If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread” (verse 3b). These words of Satan seem so reasonable: certainly being hungry to the point of starving requires action. However, Jesus’ response exposed Satan’s evil motivation: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’” (verse 4). Jesus would be fed soon (but not quite yet) and in a different manner than that suggested by the Tempter (via “angels” – verse 11; also Mark 1:13). However, He refused to put His legitimate needs above the will of the Father, establishing a vital precedent for us. His quotation from Deuteronomy 8:3 (everyone’s favorite book of the Bible) reminds us of the power of God’s Word and of its availability to us to resist temptation. If we cherish the Bible as we should, remembering that it is God speaking personally to us, we will be equipped to defeat the wicked temptation of selfishness.