Luke 4:1-4 Not Bread Alone
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: June 26, 2018 Luke 4:1-4
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”
(Understanding the Text/Revelation of God) I have thought in the past that part of the reason to go into the wilderness was for Jesus to learn to commune with the Father in a new way. That may be true. After all, what was Jesus doing out there all that time if not speaking with the Father and/or angels? Sitting around watching the sand blow? He was speaking with angels according to Mark. “At once the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by Satan. He was among wild animals, and angels were ministering to him” (Mark 1:12-13). I guess he was also communing with nature, more specifically animals.
However, I think I was diminishing the purpose of going there. The Bible explicitly says that Jesus went to the wilderness and was tempted. Part of Jesus’ mission was to repeat the experience of Adam, only successfully, so I think the purpose of going there was to be tested. I read somewhere that some people thought that Adam might have lived thirty years before giving in to temptation. I wonder if people get that because Jesus was about thirty years old when He repeated the experience and since Jesus was repeating Adam’s life, maybe the timing was the same also. I don’t think that logic is sound enough to base a conclusion on, but it might be true.
It’s unclear to me from the text whether Jesus was being tempted the whole time and the three temptations mentioned were only the last of a long list of temptations, or if the temptations happened after forty days. Guzik’s commentary says that it was for the entire forty days and that these three temptations were just representative of the many other temptations. The SDA commentary sort of agrees with him, but points out that the three representative temptations happened towards the end of the 40 days.
Of course, the heart of the temptation here was to disbelieve God. God had testified at the baptism that Jesus was His Son, so to try to doubt that would be to doubt the Father. Jesus was choosing to fast because of the leading of the Holy Spirit. That means that using a miracle to create bread would have been to stop following the leading of the Spirit. Again, this would be a rejection of God. There was a double temptation here to distrust the Father and the Spirit–the Father through the “if” part and the Spirit by choosing to eat when the Spirit had led Jesus to not eat.
(Revelation of God / Application) Jesus answered with scriptures. The scripture showed His trust in the Father and the Spirit. He wanted to live off of God’s word. Jesus had prepared by knowing the scriptures before He entered into the fast. I must prepare by knowing the scriptures and knowing and trusting God. Satan knew that Jesus had power to triumph through God, so he was trying to lead Jesus away from trusting God. Satan delights in pointing out what we don’t have and can’t do and the impossibility of it being done on our own. Up to this point, He had just added negativity to truth. However, that negativity is leading toward “ifs” about God’s spoken word and God’s power to sustain us. When we doubt God’s promises, we are listening to Satan say that God did not mean what he said and that even if He did mean it, He does not have the power to back it up. Satan leads us to focus on ourselves and to reject God’s way in order to preserve ourselves. God is the opposite. He pours Himself out regardless of the cost to Himself even if it means not preserving Himself. Satan was trying to get Jesus to focus on self instead of on the Father. Thus, negativity mixed with truth is a lie. Focusing on self instead of on God is a lie also.
(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) I have heard sermons where it says that it is not sinful to be hungry, and that is true; however, God had already sustained Jesus for forty days without food, so there would be no reason to distrust God on the 41st day (or towards the end of the 40 days). Jesus was fasting. That tells me that the Spirit had led Him to fast and not told Him to stop. Jesus had been communing with angels during this time. He was focused on heaven. Satan was trying to get Jesus to focus on His own needs and distrust the Spirit’s guidance in leading Him to fast. It was not a sin to eat, but if the Spirit was telling Jesus to fast, then, yes, it would be a sin because of disobeying the voice of the Spirit.
I’ve heard that this was also a reenactment of Israel’s wilderness experience. If so, was this temptation similar to when the children of Israel remembered the fleshpots of Egypt and complained about the manna? They were focused on their wants and distrusting God even though he had provided for their needs so far. Other situations happened in the wilderness where they distrusted God based on physical wants and needs, for example, the water from the rock was the response to such a need.
(Application) One way that Satan tempts me is to get me to focus on my physical needs and to prioritize them over my spiritual needs. He wants me to focus inwardly rather than outwardly. He wants me to not trust God to meet my physical needs so that I think that I have to take care of myself because God won’t. Guzik puts it this way “The temptation was basically this: ‘Since You’re the Messiah, why are You so deprived? Do a little something for Yourself.’ The same temptation comes to us: ‘If you’re a child of God, why are things so tough? Do a little something for yourself.’ Now, this does not mean that I should not take care of myself physically. God has given me guidance for that. It means that I must trust God when I am in physical duress and that I must not let my physical needs bring me to focus on my selfish wants.
This experience taught Jesus to trust the Father even when He was in physical need. Later at the well in Samaria, He would demonstrate to His disciples that spiritual food was more important to Him than physical food. “Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, have something to eat.” But he told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” So the disciples began to say to one another, “No one has brought him anything to eat, have they?” Jesus told them, “My food is doing the will of the one who sent me and completing his work.” (John 4:31-34).
(Prayer) Help me to not focus on my physical needs and to instead focus on Your promises. Give me Your faith because I have so little trust of my own.