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Read Luke 4:1-13 every day this week. This is the account of the temptation of Jesus. Each day this week, if possible, choose a different translation and ask God to open your eyes to new revelation from His Word.
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Luke 4: 1-2(NIV)
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.”
This passage causes a lot of issues for some people because the concept of the devil is one that they can’t accept. However, I’m reminded of a story about a person who visited a spiritist medium and was given a message. This person didn’t believe in God but after the visit he spent some time in thought about what he’d experienced. He firmly believed that the message was from an evil spirit and therefore logically, if there is a devil then there must also be a God.
So out of something that apparently came from the devil, this actually caused him to think about the existence of God. The existence of the devil is real and cannot be ignored. However, later in the study we will look at the power of God that always overcomes the devil.
Our verses today refer to the Temptations of Jesus and we will look at this in an attempt to understand the principle of temptation and how to overcome it using Jesus as our example. The first thing to note is the very first statement: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit”. I will not attempt to cover this vast topic here as it would take too long and is a subject for a lengthy Bible Study but I will briefly explain the term “full of the Holy Spirit.” It is safe to say that when a person accepts Jesus as their Saviour it is said that they have “taken Jesus into their hearts”. As Jesus cannot come into your life bodily, He comes in by His Spirit who is referred to as the Holy Spirit. In John 14 .7 He is described like this: “…the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” It is difficult to understand why Jesus was led to a place of temptation but I believe it was that we might learn that we can be tempted and we too can overcome temptation. In fact, in the Lord’s prayer, He teaches us to pray “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” How many of us regularly pray this prayer? Jesus was tempted for 40 days and during this time he had nothing to eat. Going without food for this length of time meant that Jesus would have been weak. Very often, it is during a time of weakness that we are tempted. It is at that precise time that the devil will take advantage of the circumstance and you will be tempted. Therefore, it is important to understand that we need the help of the Holy Spirit. In John, Jesus refers to Him as ‘Another comforter’. He comes alongside us to guide and to comfort. May we know His presence more and more in our lives each day.
- As an exercise, try to find as many names as you can that are given to the Holy Spirit in the Bible. This may help us understand how important He is to us.
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