Hurry Up & Breathe!

Scripture Text: Matthew 4: 1 - 4

This week, I found myself listening to at least four different persons who felt they had, at different points in their spiritual walk, “dragged their feet” to bible study group or church, feeling that other priorities were more important. I wondered to myself what could have caused this lethargy regarding the things of God. Could there have been temptation?

Jesus Was Tempted

We read in Scripture of the Lord Jesus being tempted by the devil while He was fasting in the wilderness for 40 days and nights. It is interesting to note that Satan didn’t tempt Jesus, by challenging Him to turn the stones into gold, or into arrows. But he asked Jesus to turn the stones into bread. It was obviously not a test of Jesus’ power to transform things. Rather it was a temptation, aimed at getting Jesus to break His dependence upon His Father – and use His own powers to make food for Himself.

Likewise, in our world today, Satan tempts us to depend on our own abilities to meet our own needs, rather than rely on God. This can be why so many of us neglect God most of the week, or even months, and pray only when something bad happens in our life. We think we can, so we neglect devotional time, prayer time, worship, church – until we find out we can’t.

Jesus Relied On God

Jesus rebuked the devil – addressing Satan’s exact intention. Jesus knew it was not about proving His identity as the Son of God, nor was it about His prowess as the Son of God. Jesus corrected the wrong perspective that we should depend on the things of this world. In truth, we should depend on God.

Life is about God – not what we can or cannot do. He gives us life and things that make up our life each day. Without Him, we have nothing and are nothing. Even when things go wrong, God is the one who can lift us up to our feet again.

Friends, we have to arrest the root of temptation. We have to stop and breathe God into our lives. We have got to make time for God – because He sustains life and is the SOURCE of our very being!

What We Can Do

1) Spend time with God daily
Daily refuelling is a necessary and important price to pay for. If golf is our interest, we would have to take the time out to learn the strokes, the rules and play the game. The game itself will be our reward for doing so. Similarly, if God is of interest to us – then we must spend time out to learn, listen to and obey Him. So let’s take time on a daily basis to prepare, to meet and to learn from God.

2) Set aside and observe the Sabbath
We have to set aside one day in seven to spend it entirely with God. We may worry that we will have insufficient time to do other things. But trust God that He can make the six days in the rest of the week more meaningful for you, if you take out that one day just to spend with Him - to know Him, understand His ways and to love Him.

3) Spend time with others
Our faith is not meant to be an isolated one – it is meant to be practised – God wants us to love Him and express that love to all those around as well - our families, colleagues, church mates. Work or schedules aren’t more important than people! Let’s take time to exercise the second half of the Great Commandment – by loving our neighbours as ourselves.

Prayer Response

Dearest Lord, let me not fall into the devil’s temptation to believe I can depend on myself, because that just does not work. Help me to depend on you entirely. Help me to be intentional in spending time with You and others, so that my love and faith in You may grow. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

- Devotional based on message by Rev Joel Yong