One On One: 100 Days With Jesus--Ministry YearsSample

960 Hours: The One who chose you

Forty days is a long time. Ask any recovering alcoholic and they’ll tell you before you claim victory one day at a time, you must resist the temptation to drink one hour at a time. Even one moment at a time. 

Overcoming the temptation to sin is a battle of moments for all of us. 

Today we’re with Jesus in a place He spent more than three and a half million   moments being tempted by the devil. Gone are the green hills of Jesus’ northern country. This is His cousin John’s land. Desolate. Rugged. Undulating heat. No water or trees for miles. The wilderness is an unforgiving land.

Jesus had just been with John at the Jordan. Rising from the rushing water, the baptized Jesus heard His Father’s voice, “My Son, whom I love; with You I am well   pleased.” From this high watermark, the Spirit led Jesus into the desert.

Greater than the heat and the silence of the wilderness, the stark reality of His humanity must have felt oppressive for Jesus. Sunburned and sand-whipped, His body ached with hunger. His tongue swelled with thirst. He was alone. 

But not completely. 

It’s been ages since Jesus and Satan had been together last —an eternity past when Satan, as an angel in Jesus’ service, was called “the son of the morning.” Satan remembered those glory days. And he remembered Jesus in His glory. 

You can have it again, he taunted. Right now. Perhaps the deceiver even used what sounded like the Father’s voice, Go ahead Son; You deserve the glory . . .

Jesus could have chosen glory. He could have made a loaf of bread from a rock. He could have commanded angels to rescue Him. But He chose life instead. Your life. He couldn’t accept Satan’s attractive offer and also be your Savior. 

So, He chose you. 

And in His choice, He earned the right to be your Advocate. Your high priest who identifies with your weakness. Someone who has been tempted in every way you are, yet without sinning. 

What temptation beats on you today? Do you wait in the oppressive heat of loneliness? Are you hungry for something which should be yours? Are you strategizing how God’s will could be done sooner . . . or easier? Even Jesus must have agonized in the battle; it wouldn’t have been a real test if He didn’t. When it was over, He was so beat up that His Father dispatched angels to help Him. 

Because Jesus spent those 960 hours in the wilderness, we have a way out of it. We can ask for help. We can get mercy in the exact moment we need it. When we’re tempted to sin. When we’re beat down. When we wish there was another way out. Jesus, now personally qualified and credible, gives us grace to say no. Grace to walk away. Grace to keep following after God. Just like He did. 

Tomorrow: One on one with Jesus at a wedding