Jesus quoted this Scripture from Deuteronomy when the devil tempted him to turn a stone into bread. Jesus had been in the desert for 40 days and nights and was hungry and the devil came and attacked him at his weak point. When the devil said, ‘If you are the Son of God …’ he was not casting doubt on Jesus’ divinity but tempting Jesus to use his divinity to feed himself. He was in effect saying; ‘since you are the Son of God …’ feed yourself. You’re hungry, you can do it and of course Jesus could.
Jesus knew that using his divinity to feed himself would have aborted God’s plan of salvation for mankind before it had started. So he came back at the devil by quoting from the Scriptures – a powerful weapon against the enemy. It is truth and the devil hates truth as he is the father of lies. Jesus knew that everything we need comes from God and we look to him and him alone to be our provider.
Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3 where Moses was telling the Israelites that God had humbled them in the desert by causing them to go hungry. The Israelites were very prone to self sufficiency and making their own minds up about what they would and wouldn’t do. Hungry in the desert where there was no food, they had no choice but to cry out to God who supernaturally provided for them with manna. Manna of course means, ‘what is it?’ The Israelites had never seen anything like it before and would be in no doubt for the next 40 years as the manna arrived morning and evening, except on the Sabbath, no matter where they were in the desert, that it was God who provided. They couldn’t look to their own resources; they had to look to God and truly learn that, ‘man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
Like the Israelites, we too have an in-built desire for self sufficiency but God desires us to be dependent on him. As we truly learn to look to God to be all we need and to provide all we need, it will bring us into greater liberty than we could ever know. It won’t make us feeble, unable-to–think for ourselves people but powerful children of God. Once God is our provider all the barriers to possibility are down. We have limited resources and limited abilities in ourselves but God can and will provide everything we need from our daily bread to the very air we breathe. Ask God to help you change your mind set from self sufficiency to God dependency and come into the freedom that God wants you to walk in.
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