Overcoming Temptation with Desire

The Scripture says that the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness where He prayed and fasted forty days and forty nights. Forty represents an appointed time of trial, testing and tribulation. It is reminiscent of the flood, raining forty days and forty nights. Moses left Egypt at forty, was called by God at eighty and concluded his leading of the Children of Israel at one hundred and twenty years old – all forty-year increments. Both Moses (twice) and Elijah fasted for forty days and forty nights. The Israeli spies spied out the land for forty days, gave a bad report and got to enjoy the wilderness for another forty years. Saul, David and Solomon all reigned for forty years. Nineveh was given forty days to repent. Women are pregnant for forty weeks, Jesus took forty stripes and, after His resurrection, ministered on earth for forty days, from Adam to Abraham was forty complete cycles of 50 years, from Abraham to Jesus was forty complete cycles of 50 years, and from Jesus’ first coming to His second coming will be forty complete cycles of 50 years which is the allotted time frame for Mankind to dwell upon the earth in our present state. The point is that forty is an appointed time, and this is an appointment that Jesus penciled in on His calendar long ago and was eager to keep!

To think that God prepared Himself a Body and compressed Himself within that Body to take on our limitation is beyond our comprehension – personally, I can’t stop talking about the Incarnation of God in the Man, Christ Jesus! Furthermore, to think that God, the Divine Creator, allowed and subjected Himself to the temptation of the created and fallen being, Satan, is its own wonderment! Why did He do that? Jesus had been waiting for this moment for a long time, to show up and show us how to overcome! He showed up as an “Adam,” what the Bible calls the Second Adam.

Psalm 91 describes the amazing position of those who shelter under the Wing of God, and all the intimate, protective and even militant provision that comes to those who dwell choose to dwell there. But to illustrate the point being made, let’s note verses three and four,

Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler (fowlers hunt birds)…He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge… Ps 91:3, 4

God identifies Himself with the hunted bird and basically says to the hunter, “Getcha some of this Bird, go ahead, make My Day!” Jesus came and identified with us and showed up as an “Adam” and said to our enemy, the one who hunts us, “Getcha some of this Adam, go ahead and make My Day!” 

Jesus was not whining in the moment of temptation, He did not barely overcome and He did not fast and pray so that He could some how white-knuckle a resistance of the Devil. No, He fasted and prayed from HIS DESIRE TO BE ONE WITH THE FATHER AND TO REDEEM A PURE AND SPOTLESS BRIDE! Jesus is playing by His own rules and this was His divisionary process from the beginning – to choose by free will good or evil, obedience or disobedience, oneness or independence. Jesus’ victory was solely enforced and militated by a fervent, passionate and deep desire! Jesus wanted to show us how to live victoriously and shared His strategy that works every time, Desire + Discipline = Delight!

…looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, (desire) who for the joy set before Him  endured the cross (discipline), despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (delight). Heb 12:2

Let’s take a peak at how Jesus overcame the enemy’s temptation in Matthew 4:1-11,

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” ‘Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God..."