Identification
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ Matthew 4:1-4, NKJV
I had prayed and asked God to help me move in His plan for the year and not my own. I opened my Bible I and was headed in another direction when the pages fell open to this chapter. The above scriptures were the readings that came to me. As I began to read, I knew this was God’s direction.
In this chapter, Mathew is writing about the account of Jesus during his forty day fast and Satan’s attempt at tempting Him. Jesus had been introduced to the world as God’s Son and He was moving into His earthly ministry. That is just how it happens with us - God drops in our spirit His vision for us and before we can even move in that direction, Satan has put all kinds of doubt in our heart as to why God’s vision cannot come to maturation. Jesus was led by the Spirit of God into the desert to be tempted by the devil. Notice scripture says the devil came to Jesus after He had completed his forty days and forty nights of fasting, expecting Him to be weak because His flesh was hungry.
In the first temptation recorded Satan questions Jesus’ identity. “If you be the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.” Jesus never answered Satan’s question about His identity, He responded with the Word of God. This is the same attack Satan uses with us. He is always after our identity. If we don’t know who we are in Christ, we can be misled and never accomplish the call on our lives.
Attacking identity is the same formula Satan used to deceive Adam and Eve. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:1-5, ESV).
Satan deceived Eve into believing that how God had made her was not enough. He put doubt in her mind about the wisdom, knowledge and understanding God had given her. Eve did not take a bite of the fruit because she was hungry for food but because she believed she needed more knowledge. Eve forgot that she was made in the perfect image of God. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27, NIV). We must remember that we are equipped with all that we need to do the work of Christ. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…” (Jeremiah 1:5, NIV).
Satan is always roaming the earth going back and forth in it seeking an individual to devour. He has no authority to make us do anything, so instead he plants doubt and temptations in our heart to get us to move in a direction away from God. We must remember that we have a choice. Adam and Eve taught us what happens when we doubt our self-worth. Jesus taught us a valuable lesson about Satan’s tactics - He reminded us that we have all the authority and power in the Word of God and that we should never question our identity.
Affirmations: Matthew 10:20; Luke 24:32; Ephesians 6:19, Isaiah 55:11
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