Led By the Spirit

“At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert
to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted for forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was hungry.”

Matthew 4:1-2

On the First Sunday of Lent, the Church always invites us to reflect on the Temptation of Jesus. In the Matthean account, we hear of the three temptations with which the devil tempts Jesus: changing the stones to bread, jumping from the parapet, and bowing down to him. Those three temptations can really be summed as as pride, fame, and wealth or possessions.

If Jesus listened to the devil, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread,” He would have fallen into the temptation of needing to prove that He is the Son of God. Jesus did not need to prove anything. He knew who He was, and He would not let His authority be a play of pride. We see this in the very beginning when we are told “Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit.” Jesus was obedient to the Father and followed where He led. In knowing who He was, Jesus knew that where the Father led, He must go, and where He goes the Spirit will be with Him, and where God is, evil cannot stand.

Notice that the devil from the very start attacks Jesus’s identity, “If you are the Son of God…” One who is confident in who he or she is has no need to prove to others who they are or what they can do. If we know and believe that we are indeed the Father’s beloved sons and daughters, then we will have no need to prove anything to anyone. We must know who we are and we must be confident in that, otherwise, our foundation will become shaky and when the devil comes to rock it with his lies, it will not be hard for him to crumble it. We are the Father’s beloved sons and daughters.

Another important detail is the duration of Jesus’s fasting. The forty days remind us of several things – Noah and the flood, Moses on the mountain, Elijah and his journey to Mt. Horeb, the Israelites in the desert. So, Jesus’s 40 days should remind the Jewish reader that something important is going to happen. After these 40 days, Jesus began His public ministry, teaching, preaching, healing, comforting, and raising the dead. But as we know already, this was not welcomed by all. The very fact that Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights tell us that He has come to fulfill and not abolish. He is remaining true and faithful to the traditions of His ancestors and the Mosaic Law – that He was a Jew through and through, but now He is bringing the Jews to where God has promised them – true freedom, a life with God.

The 40 days Jesus spent in the desert also represent our lives. In our lives we ought to retreat and go into the deserts of our hearts, seeking God and asking for His strength and grace. There will also be times when we will be tempted by the devil. We will be among all types of people, people who like us, people who dislike us, those who wish us well and cheer us on and those who wish our failure and rejoice in our defeat, but God’s angels will never fail to minister to us and Jesus Himself, the bread of life will always sustain us and nourish us on this journey.

As we begin our Lenten observances, let us remember that Jesus is with us and is truly like us in all things but sin. Like in this passage, we are told that after all His fasting, Jesus was hungry. Jesus has a human nature. He knows our struggles and our difficulties. He knows the lure of the devil. But He also knows triumph over evil. This Lent let us journey confidently through the deserts of our lives, being led by the Spirit, knowing who we are, whose we are and trusting that Christ journeys with us.

Come Holy Spirit, teach me to follow Your prompting and be led by You so that I might know what God’s will is for me and so live it out.

Even Now…

“Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.”

Joel 2:12-13a

Lent is such a privileged time for all Christians. It reminds us of who we are, to whom we belong, and how that great chasm between God and man was bridged. It tells of the greatest story mankind has ever heard, the story of an all-powerful God who has become one of us so that we might be saved – not by magic or spells, but by His very own blood, His very self.

On the first Sunday of Lent we always read of the Temptations of Jesus, and what strikes me each time I read and ponder that passage (in all three synoptics) is that Jesus was led by the Spirit. That even before He started His public ministry, Jesus showed the importance of obedience. All that Jesus does is from the Father and He does nothing apart from the Father (see Jn. 5:19). We know Jesus stays true to this His entire earthly life. Even when the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees plotted and schemed to get rid of Him, Jesus remained steadfast in carrying out the will of His Father. Nothing can get in the way between the Father and the Son – no trials, no difficulties, no hardships. Throughout His public ministry, Jesus showed us what it means to be sons and daughters of the Father and what that relationship should look like.

Relationship is at the very heart of the story between God and man. From the moment Adam and Eve disobeyed God until the time of Jesus, a great chasm existed between God and man. Sin was great and the desire to return to God was weak. God sent prophets, appointed judges, and anointed kings, yet the people still chose to not listen and placed their trust in other gods, resulting in slavery and captivity. “Return to me” is what God said to the people through the prophet Joel. God desired that His people return to Him so much so that He did the unthinkable – He sent His only Son into the world to take on our human flesh. He came not to condemn but to save, and He did so by giving Himself completely to His Father and to His people, all the way to the Cross. When Jesus stretched out His hands on the Cross, He bridged the gap between heaven and earth, for in Him humanity and divinity are one.

Even now — even in our sinfulness, in our wayward ways, in our stubborn pride, in our selfishness — even now, say the Lord, Return to me. The Lord does not care where we are or where we’ve been, what we are doing or what we’ve done, He simply cares that we are here now, at this moment, desiring to return to Him.

This Lent, may we grow closer to the God who cries out to us, “Return to me.”

Adapted from the introduction to “Return to Me,” our Lenten reflection devotional.

Firm and Decisive

“If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live;
Before man are life and death, good and evil,
whichever he chooses shall be given him.”

Sirach 15:15, 17

Making decisions was never a strength of mine. It could be as simple as what to order from the menu or as life-changing as which career path to take. There are times when indecisiveness is not really a problem, but then there are times when it really is. With trivial matters, such as deciding on where to go for dinner, being indecisive might result in a bit of wasted time but it will not result in any major consequences. However in matters of faith and morals, indecisiveness has eternal consequences.

The Lord reminded His disciples that He came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it. He also told them to let their “yes” mean “yes” and their “no” mean “no.” When it comes to the spiritual life and our souls, we must be firm and decisive. We must either say “yes” to God and “no” to the enemy, otherwise we will be saying “yes” to the enemy and “no” to God. We must choose either life or death, to follow God’s commandments or not, to trust in the Lord or not. We cannot say “yes” only sometimes to God. Our “yes” must be a yes at all times. It must be an intentional “yes.” A “yes” that is rooted in a relationship.

When we realize and know that it is not a concept or thing that we are saying “yes” to, but rather a Person, then our “yes” might be more meaningful. We say “yes” to God because we know He is our Father and we are His beloved sons and daughters. We say “yes” to God because we know He makes all things work for our good. We say “yes” to God because we know He sent His only begotten Son into this world so that our likeness in Him might be restored. We say “yes” to God because we know that He is our life and our salvation. We say “yes” to God because it is to Him that we belong and to Him that we will one day return. Brothers and sisters, let our “yes” to God be firm and decisive for He has already say “yes” to us.