Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” But He answered and said,
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'”                                     Matthew 4:1-4

It has been said by many people, “I will do whatever it takes to survive.” I have, sadly, at times lived that way. Is that, however, the response of Jesus as He was tempted in the wilderness; to survive at any cost?

The tempter, who was Satan, trying to get Jesus to take the easy way, challenged Him, by questioning His position with His Father, and questioning His ability to make it to the cross without sinning. Yes! It would have been a sin for Jesus to turn stones into bread.

To do so He would have been falling for the temptation of the “Lust of the flesh”, and would have failed.

Take a note on His answer to the tempter. Jesus used the words of God from Moses’s writings (Deuteronomy 8:3), and noted that His survival would be due to the truth of the word of God; doing the godly and right thing.

Jesus teaches us later in Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”   These words have much more power and authority to us when we see how Jesus handled His temptation in the wilderness.

Let us commit to Him to live by His word, trusting Him only for life’s needs. Warning: this is not implying sitting back and not working.