Thursday January 6th - Luke 4

You can read Luke 4 here

Tom writes:

I don’t know about you, but one of my big three temptations has never been to jump off the top of a church to force God to catch me. What’s going on here? Jesus’ temptations only make sense when we realise that the Wilderness is where Jesus confronts Satan over the destiny of the earth. Jesus goes into the wilderness a bit like David goes to Goliath; mano-a-mano to fight to the death for the land. Jesus has - just like David - been anointed as King and has - just like Israel - been commissioned to release salvation to every family across the earth. This brings Jesus into unresolvable conflict with earth’s current landlords; Satan and all of his hordes. The first tactic Satan uses is to try to convince Jesus there isn’t a battle to fight at all. Forget this fasting lark; just tuck into some food and enjoy the fruit of the earth. Jesus bats that away by quoting from Deuteronomy; God’s people have a mission to follow and it isn’t about just getting fat. In the second temptation Satan pushes Jesus to agree to a “win-win” truce; Jesus gets most of what he wants as long as Satan gets to stay in post. Again Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy and again it is about the mission of God’s people to do all that God has said. What is significant here is that Jesus refuses to compromise his worship even slightly in order to “make some progress”.  What God wants is total enthronement of God across all the earth and any compromise on our worship is actually a feather in the cap of the enemy. Finally we come across the temple temptation. Perhaps the most subtle temptation of all is for us to fight the battle of God but to make it all about us? When the devil tempts Jesus to jump from the top of the temple he is really suggesting Jesus promotes his own reputation and safety while “kind of doing what God wants”. What this really does is to drive a wedge between “serving God” and “loving God”; between “pursuing God’s plans” and “pursuing God’s presence”. Jesus knows that wedge is horrible. Jesus wants to serve God by loving God, he wants to pursue God’s plans by living in his presence. What Jesus fights for in the Wilderness is intimacy with the Father, it is anointing with power by the Spirit. What Jesus shows us in the wilderness - and again and again when he withdraws back into “lonely places” - is that the real battle in this life is to prioritise intimacy with God no matter the cost. Satan’s strategies are to take us anywhere but into the Presence because he knows our victory in God is found in the vicinity of God.

Question for reflection

What things could you “bat away” in order to grow greater intimacy with the Father?