When the enemy attacks. Simple. Soulful. Solutions. Of faith. Begins and ends with the Word of God.
Jesus enters the wilderness where He is tempted by Satan. Humanly alone. But spiritually surrounded by legions of angels.
Jesus fasts for 40 days and night where His nourishment can only be found in the heavenly realm.
What happens. Satan sees an opening. To conquer and destroy. A loophole of perceived weakness. A satanic delusional idea that Satan can best the Son of God.
Satan comes up with three schemes of attack. Full frontal and holds nothing back.
- The temptation of need. The enemy tempts Jesus with the idea that Jesus’ most basic needs can be fulfilled apart from the will of God. “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” —Luke 4:3
- The temptation of expectation. The enemy tempts Jesus with the idea to test if God will rescue Him if He falls. To question God’s discretion to act. ”He will order His angels to protect you.”—Matthew 4:5. If you carry out action A, then God will have to respond accordingly. To expect God to act the way you want Him to is to usurp God’s discretion to decide the outcome.
- The temptation of creed. The enemy tempts Jesus with this offer: worldly gain but in return, Jesus must bow down to him. “I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them because they are mine to give to anyone I please. I will give it to you if you will worship me.” —Luke 4:6-7
Jesus’ answers each time by aligning Himself to the truth found in scripture about God.
Simple, soulful, solutions to demolish the attempts of Satan to thwart the kingship of God in our lives. Don’t make this complicated. Satan wants to confuse you by using scripture deceptively to tempt.
Let the Word of God fight for you. Let it tear down the enemy’s arguments. Respond with the Real Truth.