The God Guarantee: By Jack AlexanderSample

Battles in the Wilderness

Matthew 4:1-11

When Jesus’s traveling ministry was about to begin, he “was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (verse 1). We can assume the place he went was barren and empty. There was no village where he could buy supplies and no other people with whom to share his burden. I imagine the Mediterranean sun beating down on him as he fasted and prayed for forty days.

At that point, Satan showed up, and the first thing he did was tempt Jesus to provide for himself. “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” (verse 3).

Satan’s battle lines were drawn: a loving, just, and good God would not let us suffer. If the Son of God could provide, he would. But if this man in the wilderness couldn’t provide for himself, Satan tried to conclude, then he was somehow weak or incapable.

Jesus, of course, knew better. He understood the appropriate context of God’s provision. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” he reminded Satan (verse 4).

Today the devil is still lurking in the wilderness, waiting to pounce on our moments of weakness. The enemy of our souls wants to convince us that God’s resources are limited and that his promises are undependable. He wants us to believe we live in scarcity, not abundance.

He isolates us and stokes the fires of our fears, telling us that the burden of our provision is our responsibility, not the responsibility of the One who promised to be our guide and give us our daily bread. Satan says we are alone and unloved. When things are bleak, he tells us we’re failing, that God is failing. If God cared, why would we be in this place? Why would we have to face cancer or theft or betrayal or loss? Why would God allow any of this to happen?

Those are questions we all ask at one time or another, but God alone has the answers. So even as we expect temptations to periodically come our way, let us continue to trust God to do what is for our good in his good time.

Look up one or more of your favorite promises from the Bible, and pray them back to God, asking him to fulfill them in your life.