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Believe You Me 11

By: Steve Negley

Posted: September 15, 2018

Category: Daily Devotional

Looking Back Over Jesus’ Life
The Temptation of Jesus

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished 
  
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 
 
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 
Matthew 4:1-2, 5-7

I have found in my life as a Christian that faith can be refined in the fires of temptation. In Matthew’s account of the temptations of Jesus, there are three basic ways that His faith was tested. The second of these had to do with the fact that “it’s not all about me.”

Even Jesus, as the Son of God, needed to think about where he fit into the puzzle. The Devil quoted (and misused) scripture, asking Jesus to show how special he was as the Son of God by throwing himself down, and forcing the angels to come to his rescue. But God’s promises don’t have to be tested.

God will sustain us. God will care for us. God loves us. That’s who God is and how God acts toward us. Those are some of what God promises to us. We can believe these promises to be true. We don’t have to put God to the test.

Prayer

Almighty God let me remember that You are the One who made me, and that I can be happiest when I trust You to care for me and love me. Let me accept my place as Your child, and to rest in Your loving arms. Amen.