Luke 4:1,14 (ESV)
[1] And Jesus, full of the Holy
Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness
[14] And Jesus returned in the
power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the
surrounding country.
Between these two verses Jesus’ temptation
in the wilderness occurs. Forty days of fasting and testing culminating with
the three temptations recorded, stone to bread, authority and glory, and jumping
off the pinnacle of the Temple. He does not fall for any of them, nor does he
engage the devil any more than to say that there is something more important
than bread, you only worship God, and you don’t test God. After that the devil
leaves him, but only “until an opportune time” (vs 13).
How can this be when Jesus is
full of the Holy Spirit and returns in the power of the Holy Spirit. Shouldn’t
that mean that he is immune to testing? Why the wilderness experience?
We all face wilderness
experiences. David wrote about walking through the Valley of Death. Jeremiah was
thrown into a muddy cistern. Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery.
Abraham waited years for the promise of a child. Moses spent most of his life
in the wilderness, forty years in training on the backside of the desert and
then forty years leading Israel in the wilderness, yet he did not get to enter
the Promised Land.
The experience of the wilderness
does not mean that God has abandoned us. The presence of the Holy Spirit in
Jesus’ life did not abate because he was in the wilderness. He went into it
filled with the Holy Spirit and came out of it in the power of the Spirit.
Sometimes God uses wilderness experiences to draw us nearer to him. When we
have no way out, he is the way out. When we have no strength left, he is our
strength. Paul wrote in 2 Cor 1:9-10, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is
sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ . . .
For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
We have an enemy, and he knows the
opportune times to attack. What we must remember is that as believers in Jesus
Christ, the Spirit of God is with us and in us. He never leaves us. He never forsakes
us. He never abandons us. We need to learn to rest in him when the wilderness
surrounds us and the enemy attacks. Our victory is not in our strength to
withstand, but in the power of the Spirit who dwells in us. Even when we cannot
feel him, he is there. Rest in that truth.
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