It Is Written

So i was reading Matthew 4 today…

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

So many things about this text truly blow my tiny mind, and convict my trying heart, but one group of words in particular this morning are making their way in.

“It is Written”

Have you ever thought about WHY those words are there?

Couldn’t the Son of God simply answer, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,”  without stating the obvious?  And wouldn’t we all know that the words that Jesus rebuked the devil with were the same words written before in Deuteronomy, and in that reasonably deduct that “it is written?”

Or maybe He could have replied, “Yo, Like I said, Man shall not …”

I mean, HE WROTE IT. right?  He IS the Word, right?

In the face of Spirit led temptation, the Son of God PURPOSEFULLY dials up SCRIPTURE.  He purposefully refers to WORDS that are WRITTEN down in His book in order to rebuke “the tempter.”

Are you seeing what I am seeing here? That every time Jesus models overcoming temptation, He quotes the written Word from memory…

Ok…

Where in the world did we get the thought that we could overcome the tempter by our decisive will?  If the Son of God uses memorized scripture as His weapon for temptation, SHOULDN’T WE?!!!

If you are like me, you might be thinking, “no wonder why  i haven’t been able to…!”

We have it! the LIVING, PIERCING, DEVIL REBUKING, LIFE GIVING, HEART CHANGING, VICTORY WINNING, SHARPER THAN ANY TWO EDGED SWORD       WORD       OF      GOD!!!!

And without it, we are doomed.

Lord Jesus, grant that we be urgent in hiding this Treasure in our hearts, and in that, use it as You did. amen

SB

posted in September 27th, 2010  6 Comments  Posted in Blog  •  Tagged
  • http://amcdesignstudio.com April

    AMEN! and Amen again!!

    btw, congrats on becoming the father of a gorgeous child :)

  • Katie Gober

    true that, B…been extremely convicted of this as well lately

  • Shannon

    Like the new song!! When are you coming back to MN?

  • Daniel Ochocki

    I know exactly what you mean. I don’t know why I try to fight temptation with my will at times because I stumble every time. It’s the Word of God alone where you turn to stand up against sin. Amen! – Isaiah 43:25

  • evelyn

    It ties into that verse in Ephesians, about putting on the armor of God: the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God!

  • evelyn

    Like when Jesus was in spiritual “combat” mode with the enemy, He gave an example of using the armor of God-the sword of the Spirit. He pretty much just demonstrated the Ephesians verse.