Thursday 15th January
Read Matthew 4:5-7
“Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the highest point of the temple. 6 ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is written:
‘“He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”’
7 Jesus answered him, ‘It is also written: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’” (NIVUK)
The slanderer’s playbook is remarkably limited but nonetheless simple enough to thwart us constantly. In small ways, and large ways, we constantly test the constancy of the love those around us have for us. ‘I wonder if they will notice if I don’t do that any more?’. ‘If I say this will anyone ask if I am OK?’. Our desire to be loved, and to know we are loved and important and seen, seems inexhaustible. The earliest slanderous approach in the garden asked precisely that question. Does God really care? Why is He withholding that from you if He really cared?
Jesus has just been baptised and declared to be the Son of God and is then immediately led into the wilderness. Conditions are tough. It would be entirely reasonable to wonder, like the Israelites did before Him, if God really cared. They asked precisely that question. Did God lead us out of Egypt to let us die in the wilderness? If we are holy and precious to God why is He not taking care of us? Did He not promise to lead us to a land flowing with milk and honey? Does God really love us?
We ask those questions ourselves when our circumstances turn bleak. Sometimes we fail to trust God loves us at those times. We might turn our face away. But there is One who went before us who continued to trust in God’s love so that when we fail we can turn to Him and take refuge.
“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.’” (Psalm 91:1-2) (NIVUK)
