Matthew 4:1–11 // Jesus fasting and trusting the Father // Rick Duncan
Day 18: Make Room by Redirecting Desire
Lent is an opportunity for us to join Jesus in a kind of wilderness. We can fast from food, from noise, from being hurried. Hopefully, distractions dissipate and what’s driving us will come to the surface.
Matthew tells us that Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. These details matter. The hunger, the solitude, the deprivation, and the testing were all part of God’s plan for Jesus, the One who learned obedience from the things that He suffered.
When you fast during Lent, you are entering into your own time in the “wilderness.” It’s your place of preparation.
During His 40-day fast Jesus was seeking to live fully in His Father’s love. His body was weak, but His soul was alert. The fast didn’t empty Him; it filled Him with focus. Jesus gave up what sustained the body so He could access what sustained His soul.
Temptation #1: “Command these stones to become loaves of bread.” The temptation was to meet a legitimate human need in a self-reliant way. The temptation was to grab for Himself what He may have wanted instead of receiving from the Father what He needed. Jesus refused to let a good desire take the place of godly dependence.
Temptation #2: The devil wanted Jesus to seek after personal recognition. The devil urged Jesus to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple, “God will rescue You and the people will see it. They will applaud you and receive You!” This was a temptation to be affirmed and followed without the long obedience of humility and servanthood. Jesus resisted again. He didn’t need to perform for applause and approval.
Temptation #3: This temptation was an offer of power. Satan promised all the kingdoms of the world. But the cost was high. Jesus would have had to give His allegiance to someone other than His Father. This was the offer of a crown without a cross, of authority without suffering, of gain without pain. Jesus won again. He did not need the devil to give Him control. He trusted in His Father’s will and ways. He knew He would be exalted one day in God’s time.
Jesus didn’t resist temptation by a denial of desires. Instead, His desires were proven to be in prefect order. Jesus was not detached. He was not numb. His hunger for God outweighed His hunger for bread. His longing to please the Father eclipsed any desire for applause or power. He knew that what the devil was offering was temporary. He refused to exchange what was lasting for what was fleeting.
When we are tempted, we are usually not pulled to choose something that’s obviously evil. We are tempted to turn good things into ultimate things. We want comfort, affluence, affirmation, success, influence, control, and more to give us what only God can give.
This is why we need Lent. We need the wilderness. We need to empty our stomachs and our souls. Slowing down can help bring our desires into the light.
When we fast from food, media, and noise, we create space for holy noticing. Fasting doesn’t create desire; it reveals it. It shows us what we turn to for comfort, what we rely on to feel secure, what we crave when we are tired, anxious, or unseen. And once we can name our desires, we can cooperate with God’s Spirit to reorder them.
C.S. Lewis famously wrote, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak… We are half-hearted creatures… fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us… like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.” We settle for small comforts when something far greater is being offered.
Jesus resisted the temptation because He knew the difference between the lesser and the greater. He knew what life in sync with the Father was like. He knew that waiting on the Father is never wasted.
We will not be faced with the kind of intense temptation Jesus faced. But we live with the pull toward ease, the hunger to be noticed, and the longing to be in control. After all, we’re human. And fallen. And Satan is prowling around seeking to leverage our desires to destroy us.
But Lent invites us into a wilderness – a place where our desires can be reordered, a place where future glory can be revealed to us.
“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose.” Jim Elliot
Question To Consider:
What desire are you facing that Satan wants to use to degrade you? How can that desire be reordered so that God can leverage it to reward you?
Prayer prompt:
Sit quietly before the Lord. Name a desire that seems strong in your life. Don’t try to fix it. Just name it. Ask the Father to show you how that desire, if left untended, can limit you. Now, ask Him to help you trust in His will and ways – even though that often means waiting on His timing. Ask Him to give you grace to reorder that desire to launch you into greater faithfulness and fruitfulness for Him.
