Flee to Jesus
Flee to Jesus
Times are hard for many of us right now. Some of our mentors, including our executive director Mark Casson, have been sick with covid. Covid fatigue is getting to many of the rest of us. Financial uncertainty, the unsettled election results, and ongoing isolations are also taking a toll. If it’s been hard time for us, and for many of us it has been hard, imagine what it is like for our brothers and sisters in the prisons.
What ought we to do when times are hard, when we are hard pressed? Let’s consider what Jesus did at a time when he was hard pressed.
At the beginning of his ministry Jesus engaged in a face-to-face battle with the devil (Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-11). After his baptism Jesus went into the desert where he fasted for forty days. At the end of that time, when he was hungry and, we can assume, physically weak the devil attacked him. He tempted Jesus at just that point of weakness. That is often his tactic, to tempt a person at the point of a great weakness. When we are weak, we must expect a spiritual attack. We must be prepared.
The devil said to Jesus, “So you claim to be the Son of God. And I know you’re hungry. Here’s your chance to both prove you’re the Son of God and do something about your hunger. If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread,” (Matthew 4:3; Luke 4:3).
George Robertson wrote, “[This] temptation would have been a powerful one for any of us…It was a two-pronged attack... It was the devil’s attempt to tempt Jesus to pride and to defend his deity at the expense of his mission. And it was an attempt to move Jesus to unfaithfulness because of his adverse circumstances. Now why did Jesus go through this? For us. Jesus not only had to pay our debt by passively hanging on the cross and taking our judgment. He also had to actively earn a righteous record for us by living a perfect life in our stead, including resisting all temptation.”[1]
Faced with a powerful temptation, Jesus replied by quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3 “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” In this Jesus is an example for us. When the devil tempts us, we should do as Jesus did and turn to the Scriptures.
When temptation comes at us a powerful defense is to reply by quoting the word of God. There is power in God’s word. The Scriptures are a means of grace. Let us study the word, memorize it, rehearse it frequently, and, when tempted, deploy it as a weapon to deflect the enemy’s attack.
But there is more here. Jesus is not just a moral example for us to follow. That is the main difference between Christianity all other religions. In all the world’s religions adherents are called to try hard to follow the leaders’ example. But Jesus is not just our example. Jesus is our Savior.
Jesus “resisted that temptation for us. And the righteousness of that resistance has been imputed to our accounts. In that incident we see the hope for our continuing to do what this passage requires. We will live in complete dependence upon God by remembering his faithfulness to us by constantly asking from Christ the grace to do so.”[2]
In our hard times, in our adverse circumstances, when we are hard pressed, let us flee to Jesus, remembering all he did for us and clinging to him for his grace to turn from temptation and preserve in righteousness.
Much love,
Barry
[1] George Robertson, Deuteronomy, 79-80
[2] Ibid., 80