I’m staring at the most gorgeous purple-to-pink sunrise right now. It’s beautiful. The sun is peeking just above the trees I can see from my balcony doors. Isn’t it amazing how God gives us little glimpses into His glory like this? “The heavens declare,” right?
Anyways, let’s get into the verse of the day today.
But Jesus told him, “No! PEople do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Matthew 4:4, NLT
This is one of those verses that kind of makes you go, “Well, duh, of course.” Of course we need the Word of God, right? It’s obvious we’re supposed to seek God above all else, right? Jesus is the answer, right?
I love taking verses that have become borderline-if-not-full-blown cliches in the Christian community and stripping away the preconceived notions around them to reveal the stunningly-relevant, impactful truth underneath that we often neglect. I like to call it: Stripping 101 (for Christians!).
Stripping 101 (For Christians)
Okay, yes, the title is a little cheeky (and maybe, just maybe that was also an edgy joke) but it does the same thing I want to do with these verses: it’s a pattern-interrupt.
I want to look at this very-commonly-quoted verse from a different angle than I normally do (and maybe you too!).
Let’s take another look at the verse, but in the context of the chapter overall (the first half, anyways).
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. 2 For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry.
3 During that time the devil[a] came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”
4 But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say,
‘People do not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’[b]”5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, 6 and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say,
‘He will order his angels to protect you.
And they will hold you up with their hands
so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’[c]”7 Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’[d]”
8 Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 “I will give it all to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me.”
10 “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “For the Scriptures say,
‘You must worship the Lord your God
and serve only him.’[e]”11 Then the devil went away, and angels came and took care of Jesus.
Matthew 4:1-11, NLT
First of all, can we just take a moment to appreciate, “Get out of here, Satan”? That made me chuckle. I picture Jesus with the most annoyed look on His face getting a little sassy. God invented sass, so naturally Jesus could wield sass in ways we can’t even imagine. “You brood of vipers”? “Get behind me Satan,” directed at Peter? Come on. Sass of epic proportions.
Here we see Jesus alone in the wilderness, His physical needs far from being met. Have you been in that place? Reading about this takes me back to when I first became a single mom. I moved into my first apartment when I was making $500 a month and applying for public assistance. I didn’t know how I was going to pay next month’s rent and be able to afford food. I bought a lot of Aldi oatmeal. What comes to mind for you?
Jesus is hungry here. He’s been in the wilderness and fasting for somewhere in the ballpark of 40 days at this point. I don’t know about you, but I’d likely be at the point of going, Forget my spiritual needs, here, I just need some food! It would be so easy to rationalize. God will provide for me, right? And here’s someone offering me food right when I need it. What if this IS God providing for me? Pretty quickly, taking food from the literal devil doesn’t seem so bad. When we want something, and especially when our physical needs aren’t being met, it’s very, very easy to let our spiritual needs slip in favor of taking care of our physical ones.
But here’s the thing, and this is the point I want to make.
It’s easy to say we need God’s Word more than we need our daily bread, but when we take that nice, fluffy thought and turn it into action (that action being actually pursuing His Word and the life it brings instead of our seemingly-dire physical needs), it puts us in the position to experience God providing for all our needs. All at once, and in the way He sees fit.
Have you experienced a time when something you thought was genuinely impossible ended up coming about in a miraculous, only-God-could-have-done-this way? If so, I’d love to hear it, so please either shoot me an email or leave a comment.
For me, this looked like tithing even when the numbers of what was coming in and what needed to go out weren’t even close to aligning. Every month I faithfully added up every single source of income (including my child support, babysitting odd jobs, etc) and sent 10% of it off to my church. I put seeking and following the Lord and His Word above the physical needs I had, fully putting my faith in Him to make the ends meet. And do you know what happened? They met.
Sometimes that looked like a friend dropping off a grocery store gift card. Other times it looked like a new client coming in just in the nick of time. Last year it looked like God bringing my sweet husband Cameron into my life, whom He’s blessed with a well-paying job that makes it possible for us to focus on knitting together our newly-blended family while recovering from a very tough season of divorces, multiple forms of cancer, and learning to navigate the shockingly-different-from-the-original-plan lives God has seen fit to place us in.
All of this is great theoretically, and it’s easy to sagely nod your head and go, Yep, very good. Of course we want to put God first, then do absolutely nothing about it. That’s a common pattern for Christians (throwing myself under the bus here too!). We love the sound of truth, but following it into seemingly-dark places isn’t quite as fun.
What is God calling you to today? Where is He calling you to lay down your needs, even the urgent ones, and seek Him instead? Where can you resist the urge to tackle your own problems and instead lay them down, trusting Him to address them while you rest and follow His voice?
I invite you to grab your journal and bible and favorite pen, brew up a cup of something delicious, find a quiet-ish place to sit, and ask Him what He has for you. Here are a couple questions to get you started.
What to Ask God to Hear His Voice
I like to start by asking God to quiet any and all voices that aren’t His. I try to quiet my heart, confess any areas I’ve been falling short, and ask for forgiveness. I then write down whatever scripture I’m studying that day. Today it was Matthew 4:4. Often He gives me a question to ask, but here are a few in case you need a starting point:
- Father, what do you want me to know today? (This is one I ask almost every day.)
- Where am I relying on my own strength instead of Yours for my needs?
- What do I need to surrender to You?
- What lies am I believing about myself / my needs / Your faithfulness?
- What do You want my priority to be today?
I like to write out the question then sit and listen. God often gives me sentences, sometimes even paragraphs. He tends to give my mother-in-law a word or a phrase.
If listening prayer is new to you, I highly recommend Seek Well‘s resources. They have a book that walks you through 7 weeks of listening prayer. Cameron and I read it together last year when we were trying to hear God on the direction of our relationship.
After the listening comes the hard part: putting it into practice. Too many times I’ve heard God clearly then completely ignored the action steps He’s given me. Lately I’ve been putting some serious effort into obedience (thus this post! He’s been telling me to write quite a bit the last few weeks). Something that helps me is telling someone what God has told me to do and asking them to hold me to it. Maybe you’re the type of person who can write something on a list and actually do it. In that case, my organized friend, go grab your planner.
Whatever the best method is for you to execute, take a page out of Nike’s book and just do it.
I’ll talk to you again soon.
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