Jesus was Man and Relied on God

This morning I am reading Luke’s account of Jesus and His temptations in the wilderness by the devil. Where the events are the same, the take brought more to my thinking. Matthew recounted the event that Jesus had been fasting for 40 days and where Luke follows the timing, he uses a different take.

“¹And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness ²for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.” – Luke 4:1-2 (ESV)

Luke indicates that Jesus was “hungry”. I don’t know about you, but if I had been fasting for 40 days, I would certainly be hungry. I believe that here Luke really tells us of the humanity of Jesus, and he shows more to the state Jesus was in to be tempted by the devil. I know that it would have been difficult for me to not use my God given power to feed myself.

Jesus is shown to be fully man here. And He demonstrates His full reliance on the Father for with His statement to the devil when tempted with turning stone into bread.

“³The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.’ ⁴And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone.”’” – Luke 4:3-4 (ESV)

And this is where Luke ends that temptation in recall to you and me. This to me is important in that Jesus leaves it here. He allows the devil to stew in the statement and get on with things. Jesus allowed God to just protect Him from the evil. The devil I am sure was like, “what, no preaching at me” and I can see him to start with the frustration of knowing that he did not have much of a chance after that.

The lesson for me that I am taking away is that I can just keep things simple and allow God to do His work in my life and protect me from all that comes my way. The devil is going to come after me and do so when I am the weakest. I have to do as Jesus did and rely on God, knowing that He will not let me perish to the devil. He will allow me to be tempted and only awaits for my reliance on Him and He will deal with it on my behalf, just as He did with Jesus there in the wilderness.

I am man and Jesus was as well. I have the example of how to proceed in this world. I have to rely on God and keep things simple on my end. The Father will not let me perish and will guard me against the evil that comes.

What approach are you taking? Are you out there doing more than you need to do in the fight against the evil one? What if you just kept it simple and relied on God to do the work to protect and fight against the evil one?