I started this week talking about Tolstoy’s short story, How Much Land Does a Man Need. Read that post here. The main character of the story, Pahom, is hiking around land for sale. As he hikes, he stakes out the land. He has from sunup till sundown to make it back to his starting stake, and everything inside his circle of stakes he will be able to purchase very inexpensively. Pahom stakes out a huge tract of land. But he had gone so far out, that after a long day of walking many miles, he needed to run the last few miles to make it back in time. He had to overexert himself.
As he made it back to the starting stake, with the sun going down, he reached his hand out, touched the stake, and fell on the ground. Not just from exhaustion. He fell on the ground not in joy, not in relief, not in excitement. He fell dead of a heart attack.
In the end the only land he received was that space needed to bury him. Temptation buried him. But temptation does not need to bury us.
As we have seen this week in the story of Jesus’ battle with Satan from Luke 4, we can fight temptation with the Word of God, and we can fight it by depending on the Spirit to fill that emptiness.
Jesus shows his deep inner contentment when demonstrates that he knows, trusts in and employs the Word of God. Jesus is not using the Word of God like a magic spell, but as truth he chose to understand and put into practice in his life. It brought him strength and victory because it was a reminder of truth, of his purpose.
Like the Helmet of Salvation, remember you are saved for a purpose. Jesus could have used his own power to defeat Satan’s temptations, but instead he is an example for us as to how we can rely on God’s Word. If we defeat temptation by relying on God’s word, it will not be on our own power.
That’s why it is vital to know the Word. Know the heart of God that flows through his Word. Then we will see that victory over temptation is possible.
Jesus shows us the way. This passage magnifies Jesus. Look at how he defeats Satan! I think we should read this passage with exuberant joy for the victory we see here, and for the victory that is possible in our lives.
It reminds me of a soccer game my freshman year of college. I was on a very good soccer team that year. I recently reviewed stats about the entire program history of my college men’s soccer team, and that year, 1992, my freshman year team, which went to the National Tournament, still holds the school record for most goals in a single season with 87.
That year I’ll never forget we played a non-league game against Washington College, a NCAA Division 3 school located on Maryland’s eastern shore. We were not an NCAA Division 3 team. We were in a much lower Christian college division. So this was a big deal to be playing an NCAA Division 3 school.
The game was a fight, and in the end we won 3-2. As the game finished, many of the team and the coach were pointing out all the ways we should have won more convincingly and how it shouldn’t have been so close. It was a somber attitude on the sideline during our end-of-game meeting. It didn’t feel like a win.
I, however, was ecstatic. We had just beaten a Division 3 school! Not their JV squad. We beat their varsity squad! I looked at one of the older players, and it turns out we were thinking the same thing. We started jumping and high-fiving realizing the significance of this. We won!
In the same way, Jesus won! He defeated Satan soundly with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Jesus shows us there is hope for our victory over temptation as well.
What areas are you struggling in? How can you study God’s Word and his heart and the actions of Jesus that relate to the area you are struggling in? Share your struggle with someone. Ask them to memorize Scripture with you. When I was in college, a friend of mine memorized a packet of topical verses together. We met once per week and would recite them, adding one verse per week. I was amazed at how God’s Word filled my mind throughout the week, and how what I was memorizing related to my life so frequently.
Make these words, these ideas, these ways of Jesus, a more focused activity of your life. Stand in victory with Jesus, wielding the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Photo by Johanna Buguet on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 