Matthew Chapter 4
1/6/2016
#5: This passage opens up with a very familiar story, the story of Jesus time in the wilderness. Jesus was called into the wilderness to be tempted. God himself is never the agent of temptation for anyone but in this, case it is the devil who is tempting Christ but it is God' will that is done through this temptation. Jesus was fully God and fully man, because of this he would be subject to the same temptations you and I are. The only difference being that He has that whole God side to Him which allowed Him to resist the temptations and stay blemish free and Sinless. In the passage, Jesus is tempted in all points "lust of the flesh" (V2-3), "lust of the eyes" (V8-9), and "pride of life" (V5-6). We as Christian's should use this passage as an example of how to resist our own temptations. We need to look to Christ and his example to resist falling into our own temptations.
#4: One of the toughest temptations the devil uses against Jesus is found in verses eight and nine. In this temptation, the devil takes Jesus up to the top of a very tall mountain and he offers Him everything. Satan literally offers Him the entire world, all the power, fortune, fame, and power. You have to step back and think that Satan is actually offering Jesus the easy way out. He is offering Jesus what is already His, Jesus will get all of that stuff in due time but first He has to suffer, die, and resurrect before he will get all of that. Satan is trying to offer Jesus the quick fix and Jesus said no! Think of how hard that would be for us to do. Imagine if someone came up to your door and said let me give you all the money and power you could ever think of, all you have to do is follow me. I don't know about you but I have a lot of student loan bills and I need a new car, point is that would be really tough to turn down. But thankfully I can look to this verse and see that Jesus provides the best example of how to handle temptations. We need to realize that the easy way out is not always the best way out. We are going to have to work hard and trust in God to get what we want and need.
#3: In verse 17 we see something very important we see the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. He begins by preaching the exact same message that John the Baptist was preaching earlier in Matthew, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand". This is a message that he will continue to preach as he speaks to the public in the future. The fact that this message has been said not once but twice now should really enforce just how important it is. Any time the Bible repeats itself multiple times in a short time frame you know that what is being said is important and should be taken very seriously.
#2: Next we see one of my favorite responses in the Bible. As Jesus is walking one day, He notices there are some fisherman in the area and He stops to ask them a question. He asks them to follow Him... think about that, these guys are out in their boat doing their job when some random dude calls out to them and asks them to follow Him. To me that would be ridiculous, why would I stop working to follow some stranger but that is in fact exactly what the two men do. The Bible say that the immediately the men dropped what they were doing and followed Him. That takes a ton of faith to give up everything you know and enjoy to follow a stranger you have never met. Their response should be something all Christians strive to do. We should always be listening for the Lord to lead us and guide us. More importantly, we should be ready to act when He does call for us. We should act just like the disciples and immediately get up and follow Jesus' lead.
#1: Satan is the master at leading us into sin. He is always trying to pull us away from the Lord. In the temptation section of this passage, Jesus uses a really great method to defeat Satan and send him running away. The method Jesus uses is quoting scripture. Satan tempts Jesus three times and all three times Jesus uses scripture to deflect his attacks. This is something that you and I could do to help us in our daily battles with sin and temptation. This is one the areas I personally struggle in. Memorizing scripture is not very easy and it takes a lot of work but if you can memorize some key passages they just might make battling sin a lot easier. Jesus is the perfect example and this is just another example of that.
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