Monday, March 8, 2010

Begin your time with God by reading Matthew 3:17- 4:1
And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.

Isn’t it a little odd that immediately after Jesus is baptized and the voice of God blesses Him, He is taken into the wilderness to be tempted? Not only that but the text actually says that it is the Spirit of God that leads Him there!?

The desert, or wilderness is a very important metaphor in the Bible. Israel is mostly rugged desert. The deserts of the Bible are more rock than sand and are often quite mountainous. The variety of Hebrew words for desert or wilderness indicates the significant role the landscape played in biblical history and imagery.

The wilderness has a kind of double significance in the Biblical stories. On the one hand it is often the place of struggle, pain, and trial. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because of their disobedience to God (numbers 14). On the other hand, it is also often the place where God speaks most clearly; it was in the wilderness that God gave the law to Moses and the Israelites (Exodus 19-20). It was in the wilderness that God spoke in the still small voice to Elijah (1 Kings 19). It was in the wilderness that Jacob had his great dream of the stairway to heaven (Genesis 28).

This is why Jesus was led into the wilderness, not just to be tempted, but to meet with God!

We live in a culture of comfort and convenience today. The whole idea of the wilderness just does not seem to fit with our cultural values very well. Many Christians also view times of spiritual struggle and difficulty as things to be avoided. But it may be that we do not experience God the way we would like because we will not meet Him in the wilderness.

We are happy to meet God in our comfort, but we don’t want to meet Him if it will mean pain and struggle for us.

Have you ever experienced the “spiritual wilderness” in your life?

What lessons has God taught you through those times of struggle and trial?

Are you currently in a kind of wilderness in your life? Do you know someone who is “in the wilderness”? It may the very place where God wants to meet with and speak to you!
Close your time with God by meditating on this passage from Psalm 107…

Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things - Psalm 107:4-9

Jeff Frazier