The freedom Jesus promised | Matthew 4

We live in a world where our decision-making is often driven by our desires and needs. The most effective advertisements are usually the ones that capitalize on our insatiable need to have more—more happiness, more comfort, more material possessions, more achievements. We are seemingly incapable of saying no to our desires and wants, because after all, many of them are perfectly justified. Who doesn’t want the superpower to have our needs met and our desires fulfilled with the snap of a finger?

Yet this was precisely the test Jesus had to face right before He started His public ministry. As God incarnate, Jesus was equipped with every authority and power to fulfill His needs whenever He pleased. But as a necessary preparation for Jesus’s ministry, He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matt 4:1).  

The temptation couldn't have come at a worse time. Jesus had just fasted for forty days and nights, and He was hungry. It was the most human and legitimate need—the need to eat and be replenished, and no one would argue that it is wrong to address this need. But somehow this was the opportunity the devil seized to tempt Jesus.

If you are the Son of God

“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Matt 4:3).

All of a sudden, the desire to fulfill a most basic need became a temptation, and it was all in the way the devil phrased the challenge. If you are the Son of God. Such a bizarre statement that seemed utterly unnecessary, because both Jesus and the devil knew that Jesus is the Son of God. As the Son of God, Jesus had the power and authority to use miraculous means to fulfill any of His needs. He could, indeed, command stones to become loaves of bread, if He so desired.

So why was it a temptation? How was this a test, an essential preparatory step for Jesus to embark on His ministry?

What was so dangerous about the devil’s challenge was that it was a dare for Jesus to prove Himself and to showcase the power that comes with his privileged identity. Anyone can go and find food when they are hungry, but only Jesus could command stones to become loaves of bread. Except the power was never given to Jesus to fulfill his personal needs, even the most natural, justified needs. It was not something for him to flaunt to prove Himself and silence the doubter. Jesus knew full well that His power was given to Him by His Father, and therefore it must be used in accordance with the will and plan of the Father. This means that the power was only meant for Jesus to accomplish the work God had sent Him to do, at the time specified by the Father.

Therefore this was a test and a temptation for Jesus because when He was hungry and when He had the power to immediately address this need, the question the devil was waiting to be answered was: would He? Would Jesus allow His desires and needs to dictate His decision-making, or would He still remember to honor God and choose obedience? Would He abuse the power given to Him just for the sake of fulfilling His wants, whether it be hunger or the desire to validate Himself?

Man shall not live by bread alone

But He answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone,  but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matt 4:4)

Jesus knew that the only way to combat temptations was through the word of God. Citing Deuteronomy 8:3, Jesus harkened back to the days when Moses was giving his final teaching to the Israelites as they were on the verge of entering Canaan after 40 years in the wilderness. Moses was urging the Israelites to be careful to do everything God had commanded. He asked them to remember all the ways God had led them in the wilderness, recognizing that those years were for humbling them and testing them to see if they would indeed keep God’s commandments (Deut 8:1-2).

While Jesus had only cited the second half of Deuteronomy 8:3, the entire verse gives us the context to understand why Jesus responded with this verse. “And He (i.e. God) humbled you (i.e. the Israelites) and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”  

Notice the verse does not say that man does not need bread to live. Rather, it says, “man does not live by bread alone,” meaning it acknowledges that our needs are valid and should be addressed. But when Jesus recalled the story of the Israelites in the wilderness, He was remembering that even though we as humans have needs and desires, we do not need to be enslaved by them. The Israelites were hungry, but God could feed them during the most impossible situations with unimaginable means, if they would just humble themselves and submit their needs to God. Our desire is not our master, but God, who loves us and does not stop watching over us, is our Lord and God who will give us everything we need. We do not need to worry about what we eat or what we wear, because God knows that we need them and will take care of us (Matt 6:25-32).

Therefore Jesus knew that even if He was dying to address His hunger at that moment, He could resist the temptation to flaunt His power and choose to wait instead. He knew that we are so much more than our desires and wants, because bread may enable us to survive, but it is our faith in the Lord that gives us life. We do not have to let our needs and desires dictate us. Rather, we can seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, we can choose obedience over our desires and impulses, because when we honor God and entrust our needs to Him, “all these things will be added to us (you)” (Matt 6:33).

We, too, have been set free

So Jesus passed His test and was victorious. What about us? What is so beautiful about the salvation we have received is that we, too, have been set free from enslavement to our desires when Jesus died on the cross for us. “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1). We have been set free to follow the Spirit and not the flesh, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim 1:7). Jesus has shown us the mighty power that has been gifted to each of us, the power of the Holy Spirit that enables us to escape the control of our fleshly nature, so that we can choose to honor God and let God help us with our needs and desires. Like Jesus, we can be victorious against the devil’s scheme when we rely on our heavenly Father and His word.

Do you sometimes feel like your life is ruled by your wants and needs? When our hearts are burning with yearnings, when our desires are constantly before us, it could feel like we are trapped and they are our masters that must be answered to. But let Jesus’s example remind us that the same power is in us! We do not need to succumb to every temptation or impulse that comes our way. Through the help of the Holy Spirit, we can look away from our wants and desires and look up to see that God is watching over us. He is the giver of every good and perfect gift, the one from whom all blessings flow. Let us choose to honor Him, for He alone is Lord.  

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