Tagged: the temptation of Jesus

The crescendo of the Cross was composed in the wilderness. Jesus settled it long before the sound of the nails fixing His hands to a wooden cross, the cleansing last breath as He committed His spirit to the Father, or the quiet authority of the angelic herald’s words to Mary, He is not here, He has risen! Before Jesus’ earthly ministry began, Satan tempted Him in the wilderness. Each confrontation was both a challenge to Jesus’ identity and a distortion of the truth.  Every one of Jesus’ responses began with the words, it is written… The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on… Read More

Come down from the cross (Matthew 27:40). We don’t often think of Calvary in terms of the emotional temptation of Jesus. But if we listen closely to those insulting dagger words thrown at Jesus by the chief priests, teachers of the law and elders, we will recognize the voice of the deceiver. Just as he challenged Jesus’ lordship in the wilderness during the famous temptation recounted in Matthew 4, he can be heard in the Savior’s weakest, most exposed moment on the cross, tirelessly seeking to break Jesus’ will.  W. Glyn Evans, in Daily with the King, describes it like this:  “The emotional strain of the cross was staggering. The chief ingredient was abandonment. The abandonment of Jesus was complete—people, disciples, and even (though only… Read More