Bread Magic

The tempting of Johan is much easier than the tempting of Jesus. I’m not even sure if I can use the word ‘easier’ here. By the way, the easiness of the tempting is not the issue. It’s the reaction that is often very different.

We can read the following in Hebrews 4:5
This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.

And also:
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. During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order his angels to protect you. And they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’” Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the LORD your God.’” Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “I will give it all to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me.” “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “For the Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the LORD your God and serve only him.’” Then the devil went away, and angels came and took care of Jesus. Matthew 4:1-11

We can see a different order of the three temptations in Luke and Matthew, I have chosen the Matthew verses for this blog, exactly because of this order. I googled a bit about the reason of the difference and I am happy to go with the idea they wrote different because they had different audiences.

-Hungry? Make some bread out of stones… if you are the Son of God…
–>No! We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God!

-Son of God? Jump off the temple and the angels will protect you.
–>No! Do not test the Lord your God!

-Worship me and the world is yours.
–>Get out! Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him!

It occurred to me today that this seems to be the pattern of temptation in our lives as well. They may not be as massive-looking as bread-magic, temple-jumping or world-leadership, but think about it for a minute.

-Here, have some anger, lust or pride, or maybe you rather have richness, fame and power?
–>Hmm, what if I just try it for a while…
Or:
–>No! I am a follower of Jesus, He is enough for me!

-You are a Jesus follower? Ok, but doesn’t that mean you are safe? Sin doesn’t impact you…
–>Alright, that’s true, once saved, always saved… Best of both worlds!
Or:
–>No! I do not want to test or sadden Jesus.

-Turn to the dark side and you can do whatever you want without guilt.
–>Get out! I want to worship the Lord my God and only serve Him!

And it goes on and on… we give in to a little temptation and it leads us slowly to bigger mistakes, bigger sin. We turn back to Jesus and all is well again, but sometimes we give in again, just this one time, oh wait, one time? No, months of old behaviour are looking at us in our rearview mirror. Back to Jesus!

Give in to a little and it will become bigger… they should make a proverb about this so we can remember it…
Like: Give sin a finger and it will take your arm, give it an arm and it will give you the finger.

Or:

The prudent understand where they are going,
but fools deceive themselves.
Fools make fun of guilt,
but the godly acknowledge it and seek reconciliation.
Proverbs 14:8-9

Photo by Marina Leonova