2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
4 Jesus answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' Matthew4:2-4
The temptations came after the fast - Jesus had completed His fasting. Satan wasn't tempting Jesus to break His fast - his temptation was more subtle.
Turning stones into bread would have solved Jesus' hunger problem.
On the face of it, it seems innocuous. He'd fasted hard, what would be wrong in Jesus doing something for Himself. Surely He'd earned it?
Maybe in modern day language Satan would have sounded like this: "So, you've done your God-thing waiting and fasting, but now all you have to show for it are some hunger-pains. But that's not a problem! You're the Son of God! (And why would a Father want to make you fast for so long anyway?) Just whip up some Messiah Magic, make some rock cookies and chow down!"
Jesus is being tempted to give in to short-term gratification.
Instead of waiting for God, He must make His own plan.
It's the temptation to rush in and be self-sufficient instead of God-reliant. It's about getting our priorities wrong.
Jesus sees right through the temptation: I'm more than my body and its hungers - short-term gratification needs to be put on hold for better things. I won't use my power for my comfort.
This is always the temptation of power - to use it for my own comfort. This lies at the heart of so much of the corruption we're seeing around us today.
It's also about learning to wait for God's timing. Unlike the husband who was in financial trouble... He prayed all night and handed the problem over to God. But in the morning he went off and sold his wife’s wedding ring, only to find an anonymous donation in his postbox when he returned.
Will we trust God and wait for Him?
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
