“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights He fasted and became very hungry.” (Matthew 4:1-2 NLT)
How did Jesus become so strong in His faith? You may be thinking: “Duh! He was God!” Yes, He was and is, but He was also 100% man – human being. So? He had the capacity to fail in His walk with His heavenly Father the same as you and I do. He was tempted more severely than any of us, yet, stood strong. But how? How did He maintain His strength to defeat the power of Satan even in light of His severe physical, mental, and emotional weakness?
The two primary means through which the Lord Jesus became strong and maintained His spiritual strength, so much so He was able to pay the full penalty for our every sin, freeing us from the bondage of our sin and shame, were His testing and His pain.
The writer of the Hebrew letter wrote in 4:15: “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings we do, yet He did not sin.” Why did God allow His only Son to be tormented and tested by temptation? For the same reason He allows us to be tempted. For the same reason athletes practice and train – to enable us to be the best we can be, strong in battle, and quick to recognize our areas of weakness.
After 40 days without eating, where would you suppose Jesus would be weak? Certainly, weak physically, but literally starving with hunger. So, where did Satan tempt Him first? “If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”
Satan’s obvious goal wasn’t simply to test Jesus’ physical endurance, but to cause Him to question who He was, thus, seeking to discredit why He was even born. That’s why testing is such a huge issue for you and me. If Satan can get us to focus on ourselves and our needs, we’ll quickly forget the Kingdom of God and our critical role in fulfilling our purpose in being a child of God.
That’s why pride and arrogance are such effective tools in Satan’s capable hands. When we’re so full of ourselves we can’t see past the end of our nose, he’s crippled our usefulness to the Lord in serving the needs of others. If Jesus had lost sight of who He was, He would have failed His mission before it began.
But testing is only part of the battle. Notice how hard Satan pressured Jesus at the beginning of His ministry and at the end. Remember the agony and anguish Jesus suffered in the garden shortly before His betrayal? In Matthew 26:38 Jesus said to Peter, James, and John: “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me.” Then what was His prayer? “Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from Me.”
What would have been the outcome if Jesus had stopped His prayer there? His mission would have been thwarted and we’d still be hopelessly lost in our sin. But gratefully, His prayer continued: “Yet I want Your will to be done, not Mine.”
The only way you and I will ever become enough like Jesus to be too strong to be stopped in our life for Him is if we stop whining when we’re tempted and in the midst of our pain and suffering. Pain and suffering are our friends because they build our character and strengthen our resolve to be all in for Jesus. To give in to our weakness and pain is to abort the mission God called us to fulfill – to be Him in our families and in the lives of others in our spheres of influence.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 