Monday, June 22
There is no better and more inspiring example to follow than Jesus Christ. He was familiar with the Scriptures, and was willing to follow the written Word of God and abide by it.
Read Luke 4:4, 8, 10-12. How does Jesus use Scripture to counter Satan’s temptations? What does this tell us about how central the Scriptures must be to our faith, especially in times of temptation?
Jesus knew the Scriptures well. He was so intimately familiar with the Word of God that He could quote it by heart. This familiarity with God’s written Word must have resulted from precious quality time with God in studying the Scriptures.
If He had not known the exact words of Scripture and the context in which they appear, He could easily have been deceived by the devil. Even the devil quoted Scripture and used it for his own deceptive purposes. Thus, just being able to quote Scripture, as the devil did, is not enough. One also needs to know what else Scripture has to say on a subject and know its correct meaning. Only such familiarity with God’s Word will help us, like Jesus, not to be fooled by God’s adversary, but to be able to resist the attacks of Satan. Time and again we read about Jesus opening the minds of His followers to understand Scripture by referring them to what “is written” (Luke 24:45, 46; Matthew 11:10; John 6:45; etc.). He assumed that those who read the Scriptures can come to a correct understanding of its meaning: “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” (Luke 10:26). For Jesus, what was written in Scripture is the norm that we should live by.
In John 7:38, Jesus — the Word of God made flesh — referred His followers back to what Scripture said. It is only through the Bible that we know that Jesus is the promised Messiah. It is the Scriptures that testify about Him (John 5:39). Jesus Himself was willing to abide by the Scriptures, the Word of God committed to writing. If He was willing to do that, what does this tell us about what we should do, as well?
What has been your own experience with using the Scriptures in your battle with temptation? That is, when tempted, did you start reading the Bible or quote Scripture? What happened as a result, and what have you learned from that experience?
