Week 3 | Wilderness: From Temptation to Deliverance

Jesus encountered three specific temptations that questioned and contradicted what He heard from the Father at His baptism. In each response from Jesus, we observe foundational elements for living in God’s gaze – for living contemplatively. The enemy frames the first temptation as a challenge.

And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘”Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matt 4:3-4

The tempter tries to throw Jesus off by suggesting that if He was really the Son of God, He should prove it. Certainly, as Jesus was experiencing hunger, the “proving” was relevant to His current situation; turning the stones to bread would have been a demonstration of being God the Son. 

The first temptation targets Jesus’ living as God’s delight. God’s delight in us means that He is involved and will provide for us. Without saying it directly, the tempter was questioning why God’s provision was not present. So, Jesus is tempted to take matters into His own hands, and to depend upon Himself and His gifts to satisfy His hunger.

Jesus had the resources to take care of Himself, but He responds by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 in which God gave His people manna in the wilderness so they would have to depend upon Him. In the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6), Jesus invites us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” as an expression of depending upon God for what is needed.

So too, our tendency is to define ourselves by what we have – to use our resources to take care of ourselves on our own terms. In Philippians 2:6, we are reminded that Jesus did not use His position as God the Son to His own advantage but took the identity of a servant.

When Jesus says that He “does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,” He is affirming that He serves God the Father. What moves and motivates Jesus is what He hears from the Father. While we can understand that “every word that comes from the mouth of God” is a reference to Scripture, a fuller understanding is that Jesus listened to the Father in prayer. 

This temptation means that we try to amass things (finances, positions, reputation, power, etc.) in order to find a sense of security. The invitation as we notice this temptation is to return to the gaze of God. In the gaze of God, we see His delight and that He provides what we need. At the heart of God’s provision and delight is the ability to listen for His voice and His heart in all things.

In John 4:34, Jesus shared with His disciples, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” In other words, what sustained Jesus was the heart of God, because someone’s “will” and “work” istheir heart. Indeed, Jesus lived by every word of the Father’s heart. In this, He was able to see what the Father was seeing. 

Is your food (what sustains and satisfies you) the heart of God? 

What satisfies and nourishes us determines what we see. As we return to the gaze of God, we see Him, and we see what He sees. As we see with His eyes – with His heart – we are delivered from evil. We are delivered from living independently and on our own terms. As we see, we receive an awareness of God’s delight and provision. “God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing.” (Psalm 23:1 MSG)

Take a few moments and prayerfully assess what satisfies and sustains you. Do you have a tendency to define yourself by and rely upon what you have like money, gifts, talents, resources? Whatever you discover, release your independence and return to the gaze of God as your food.

Prayer: Lord, I am asking You for one thing–that I may dwell in Your house all the days of my life, to gaze upon your beauty and to meditate in Your temple. Amen. (Ps 27:4)