Following Jesus' baptism, Jesus went away into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. This is the first time in Jesus' life that He confronted Satan directly, and how He handled the situation speaks volumes to how Christians should handle temptation.
In this brief episode, chronicled in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, Jesus is exhausted and hungry after fasting for some forty days. It is at this point when Satan sees an opportunity to trip up the Son of God. Satan proceeds to offer three different temptations for Jesus, testing the Lord in an attempt to trick Jesus into sinning.
Needless to say, Jesus handles the situation with the highest integrity and strength. What is most striking about this episode, however, is the manner with which Jesus conquers His foe. For every temptation Jesus replies by quoting the Scripture. It is, in fact, the Scripture itself that is Jesus' strength and response to temptation. This is telling. If we could arm ourselves in the same fashion, we could resist temptation with the same strength and confidence as Christ even in our moments of utmost exhaustion.
Because of this, I wanted to highlight the three verses that Jesus quotes. The point is not to exposit or interpret these verse, just to present them and ask that you read them, meditate on them, memorize them, and, perhaps, arm yourselves for temptation as Jesus did.
"Man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that flows from the mouth of God."
"You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve."
"You shall not put the Lord your God to the test."
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