20 January 2025

The Holy Spirit sent Jesus to be tempted.

Matthew 4.1, Luke 4.1-2A.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells us to pray that God not lead us to temptation. Mt 6.13, Lk 11.4 I don’t know whether he included that because God led him to temptation—and he didn’t wanna repeat the experience, and he didn’t wish that on his followers either. But you do realize that particular part of the Lord’s Prayer was answered with “No” in this particular instance: The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. God—’cause the Holy Spirit is God, remember—led him into temptation.

Matthew 4.1 KWL
Then Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit,
to be tested by the devil.
Luke 4.1-2 KWL
1Full of the Holy Spirit,
Jesus comes back from the Jordan.
He’s being led by the Spirit into the wilderness
2Ato be tested by the devil 40 days.

When we pray this particular part of the Lord’s Prayer, we need to keep Jesus’s temptation in mind. Because sometimes God will put us into circumstances where the devil’s gonna try to derail us. If we’re seriously following Jesus, and in so doing seriously mucking up the devil’s plans, of course Satan’s gonna try to put a stop to us. And the fastest way is to get us to stop following the Spirit and start following our selfish human nature.

Happens all the time. Christians create million-dollar ministries, then start thinking, “I’m a CEO; shouldn’t I get paid like a CEO; shouldn’t I get to live like a CEO?” and start feathering their nests and living luxuriously, instead of putting all that money into God’s kingdom and living reasonably. And plenty of mammonists, plenty of Christians who covet wealth and the things of this world, will come up with plenty of godless reasons why they not only can live like that, but should. Nevermind the fact it’s undermining their character, their witness, their ministry, their ability to hear the Spirit, their relationship with Jesus; that this money could help needy people, and these “CEOs” are nowhere close to needy. Nevermind that they’re robbing the poor, and in so doing, they’re robbing God. But I digress.

Appealing to our selfish human nature is Satan’s favorite tactic. Heck, it’s not just Satan who uses it; everybody tries it. Everybody wants to know what we covet, so they can sell it to us, or manipulate us by it. Why do you think social media companies are trying so hard to keep us on their sites—and when we’re off their sites, track our every movement on the internet? They wanna sell us stuff. Their plans are more benign than malevolent, although the more guardrails they remove, the more malevolence is gonna happen. But that’s what we see throughout Jesus’s temptations: The devil tries three times to appeal to Jesus’s selfish human nature.

And Jesus resisted. Kinda easily. Because he doesn’t have a selfish human nature. He’s got the original human nature; the one Adam and Eve had before they sinned. Plus he has something Adam and Eve coulda gained, but never did, because they sinned long before they could develop it: He’s got God’s nature. And God’s not selfish. Thanks to that divine nature, Jesus immediately identifies those appeals to his flesh, dismisses them as stupid and wrong—and punctuates his dismissals with Deuteronomy quotes. Jesus knows the Law, and never ever broke it.

When the Spirit led Jesus into temptation, Jesus was totally ready for it. Arguably he’s always been ready for it. Yes, he fasted for 40 days once he got there, to try to steel himself against temptation even further. I’ll write about that another time. But there’s nothing at all wrong with over-preparing yourself for spiritual battle. You don’t just wanna win by the skin of your teeth; you wanna win decisively. You want that devil reluctant to challenge you again, ’cause losing so bad to a lowly human embarrasses it in front of all the other devils on the playground.

When the Spirit leads us into temptation.

The reason the story of Jesus’s temptation is in the gospels, is because we get tempted too. Jesus won decisively; therefore we can win decisively. We don’t have to let Satan bully us. We got the same Holy Spirit as Jesus!

Because the Sprit is infinitely wise, when he leads us into temptation, it’s because he knows we’re ready for it. As ready as Jesus was. By the time he leads us there, he’s taught us to resist our selfish human nature, and follow him instead. If we fail, it’s not because we weren’t yet ready! It’s because we chose to fail. Chose to lose sight of the Spirit. Chose to get suckered by the devil’s wiles.

What about all the times we totally weren’t ready; where we fell into temptation as easily as Adam and Eve? Obviously we led ourselves there. Don’t go blaming the Spirit when you’re an alcoholic who willingly accepts a beer. Don’t blame the Spirit if you know you shouldn’t sleep around, yet keep going to places where that’s exactly what you’ll do. Don’t blame the Spirit for misleading you, when it’s obvious you voluntarily went without him. You do realize blaming your own sinful behavior on the Spirit is a form of blaspheming him.

When the Spirit leads us into temptation, he knows we’re truly ready. He expects us to lean on him. He expects us to resist. He expects us to rebuke. He expects us to win!

“But we’re supposed to pray he doesn’t do that.” Yes we are. Same as we’re supposed to pray for peace, not war. But when the war comes anyway and we gotta flee, we’d better be ready to flee! And when the Spirit decides it’s time for us to stand our ground against the fiery arrows of the devil, let’s be ready to do that too. Keep praying the day doesn’t come, but let’s not be foolish; let’s get prepared.

If we’re properly prepared like Jesus, it’ll likewise be a decisive victory.