In the waning hours of the day, have you ever wondered what God wants from your life? Especially in light of what you may or may not think about your future?
But he answered, It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4 ESV)
Before Jesus’ ministry even began, he wrestled with the idea of his future and the reasons and intentions behind the work he was about to embark upon. Satan, also recognizing that Jesus had a purpose here on earth wanted to make sure Jesus wrestled with his notions of his purpose. Satan challenged Jesus’ desires for forty days and nights. In an interesting parallelism, Jesus is challenged much like we are on an everyday basis. The very foundation of who he was, his identity was challenged to shake. While our wrestle with the devil seems to go on and on in many of our professional and personal lives, the struggle is the same as Jesus’. We know what we are worth and we know what we want; but we get lured into things for the wrong reasons because we are challenged by our desires. The problem is that we choose wrongly because our desires are challenged and we become victims to selfish ambition. You see, we need to understand that I am not advocating against ambitions. Jesus had a greater ambition than all of us combined: he wanted to save humanity from themselves by putting people on his back to be saved by his life being crucified on that tree. I am advocating for all of us to challenge ourselves into understanding why we want the things we want; and moreover, understand what we are willing to do and sacrifice to get it. Moreover, why do we care about what anybody says when it is God who gives us our worth? This is a challenge we must all accept on a daily basis as we look at what the great lengths by which we are saved. The question is: are you willing to give up on the love of God for mere morsels of bread and glory?
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