Not bread alone

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

NOT BREAD ALONE

Matt 4:1-4

4:1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." 4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" 

NIV

The first thing we notice is that Jesus was led by the Spirit. We know Jesus is God, and so is the Spirit, just as the Father. But they are three persons, individual aspects of the Triune God. Jesus was fully God, but he was also fully man, with every aspect of humanity, knowing gladness, sorrow, pain, passion, every emotion we all are created with. Would Jesus had gone into the desert to be tempted by the devil of his own free will? That would beg the question to be asked if we go to places to be tempted by the devil of our own free will. We certainly pray within the “Lord’s prayer”, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. Yet here we have the Spirit leading Jesus right into the position to be tempted by evil. We can only conclude that Jesus knew just how tempting the devil makes things, and that it is extremely difficult to resist. He gives us the best method to resist the temptations of the devil also, right in this text. It is also interesting that Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness. It sort of fits with the forty years the children of Israel were led in the wilderness by the Spirit of God. This is the reference Jesus uses in his response to the temptation to turn stones into bread.

Deut 8:1-4

8:1 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

NIV

The bread does not just represent food to eat, but the very idea of everything the world has to offer. This thought comes from the comparison that Jesus makes between the bread from stones and the word of God. We cannot live on bread alone, on the ideas or ideologies of the world, we must have the word of God in order to fully live. This also makes the comparison between living only in the temporal or the eternal. Man cannot have life, eternal life, on bread, on the world alone, in order to have eternal life we need the word of God, showing us the way through Jesus. The devil would want us to look to the stones, to look to the world for our life and that is a great temptation. It is easy to get trapped by the ways of the world, to be catch up in desires of things, of financial security, and all the advancements man has developed. Although we do live in this world, we have been admonished not to be of this world. That is all wrapped up in these words of Jesus. We cannot live by the ways of the world alone, in order to truly live, we need the word of God. Jesus did not make the stones into bread, he refused it because he had the word of God. This should give us this clue, that we should refuse the world, its ways, its ideologies, its systems of materialism and live by the word of God. It is not that we will go without the material things in life, as the Lord has make sure of that.

Matt 6:24-34

24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. 25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

NIV

Seek first the word of God, for we simply cannot live on bread alone.