Day 11 - Saturday

Day 11

 

"Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by the Devil."  Luke 4:1-2a (TMSG)

 

Whenever I have read about Jesus being tempted in the desert by the devil, my attention has always been drawn to how he battled the enemy.  As we will examine later, he used the word of God, or the sword of the spirit as it is called in armor terminology.  Every time the enemy tried to coerce him to do something he didn't want to do, to cause him to sin or fail in his mission, Jesus always responded with the truth of God's word.  But as I was examining this today, I got thinking about what happened to Jesus before he went to the wilderness...

 

"After all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized. As he was praying, the sky opened up and the Holy Spirit, like a dove descending, came down on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: 'You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.'"  Luke 3:21-22 (TMSG)

 

Before Jesus ever faced the devil in the desert, he heard something.  He heard who he was.  God clothed him with the truth of his identity.  That fragile part of us, the inner part of us, which we call our identity, who we really are when the lights go out and no one is around, this is what God clothed Jesus with truth.  He told him who he was.

 

Remember, when the devil's attack came in the desert, it wasn't on God, he stated "mostly" true statements about God, but the real attack the enemy made was upon Jesus' identity.  "IF he was the son of God," he would say over and over.  We only know of three encounters with the devil that Jesus had, but we don't know that it was only three.  What we do know is that the specificity of the attacks was about who Jesus was.  It seems the devil knew that if he could get Jesus to doubt who he was, he would be powerless to defeat him.

 

Now I wonder, and am beginning to believe, that it wasn't the words alone that Jesus spoke that thwarted the devil's temptations.  it wasn't just quoting words from the Bible that made him flee.  (Paul says that even the demons believe and tremble.)  How many times have I been in situations that I needed to fight the enemy, and threw the memorized words of the Bible at him and it did nothing?  Maybe, just maybe, it's because I didn't know who I was.

 

The effectiveness of the armor, and the sword in our hands, depends on that ancient belt that held all things together.  Knowing, in heart, not just mind, who I am in Christ, and believing that truth, gives me power against the attacks of the enemy.  We defend from a position of power, from a position of truth.

 

Prayer:  "Father, show me who I am in Christ.  Teach me to face every situation and enemy in my life from a position of strength, that strength which is only found in knowing the truth of who you say that I am.  Thank you for your power and truth in my life.  In Jesus I pray, Amen."