Presence of the Word, not Rules of the Word

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 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, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" [Mat.4:1-11]

Our Christian lives are full of temptations; because now we can discern according to God's standard. "Temptation is often in the guise of something good not bad, and what is good is often in the form of what might appear dull, boring or even bad itself."[1] The question for me is how would you be able to discern that they are indeed temptations, and not something we should do? In many instances, the temptations had even biblical supports as well. The model Jesus presented here is for us to be grounded in the Word of God; so any tendencies which lead away from the path of God should be considered as advances from the tempter. But there is a deeper truth beyond the seemingly simple principle above. Being grounded in the Word of God is more than just knowing what the commandment is all about. From the story of the first temptation of Eve [Gen. 3:1-7], let's not forget that Eve was able to recite what God had commanded in regard to the forbidden tree. Here we see that, "relationships are not governed by rules but by presence"[2]. It's the Presence that made sense of the rules.

One thing I still need to work on is my abiding in the Word. As simplistic as it sounds, Jesus simply pointed to the Word of God as the only weapon used to fight against temptations. Oh Lord, teach me how to cope with temptations just like You did.

[1] http://tabletalk.typepad.com/tabletalk/2005/01/mystery.html [2] http://tabletalk.typepad.com/tabletalk/2005/01/making_room_for.html