Stand Firm on God’s Word

Pray – (1/2 minute)

Read – (2 1/2 minutes) – “After fasting 40 days and forty nights, He was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” (Matthew 4:2-4)
       Passage: Psalm 119:9-16 

       God created us with a need to eat and an appetite for food. Jesus went into the desert area for a 40-day period of prayer and fasting to prepare Himself for work He had come to do. At the end of that time, He was hungry. Anyone would be hungry after not eating for forty days. I get hungry after not eating for four hours! Satan saw that as an opportunity to get Jesus to sin. The temptation was in the category of the lust of the flesh, or consumption to satisfy an appetite.  The sin would not be in eating. It would be in satisfying His hunger in a way that no one else on earth could do. Satan was tempting Jesus to assert His divinity to satisfy the hunger in His humanity, but He had expressly taken on full humanity to identify with man.
      Jesus replied with the first key to having victory over temptation by quoting God’s Word. He quoted from Deuteronomy 8:3, which was in context of trusting God to provide for our daily needs. Every temptation you face has a scripture that will address it. Learn to memorize God’s Word and stand firm on it. God will give you strength through it.

Apply - (2 1/2 minutes)
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Pray - (1 1/2 minutes)