December 1st: I Am The Bread of Life
Not By Bread Alone
by Myles Hardeman
“But He answered and said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” Matthew 4:4
Jesus, famished from his fast in the wilderness, triumphs over Satan’s temptation by reciting this portion of Deuteronomy 8:3. I imagine the rebuke effortlessly flows from Jesus’s heart as He knows the Father’s heart, and has been feeding off of His words alone for forty desert days. This passage in particular was probably fresh on His mind. After all, wouldn’t you be craving a rock sandwich just one week in? But in times of temptation, there may be no more powerful truth to take hold of than this:
God’s way brings more satisfaction than anything in this world ever could.
But there is something else that Jesus must have been pondering during His fast. We see in the previous chapter that when Jesus was baptized by John, God the Father publicly declared that Jesus is His son, anointing Him with the Spirit. Immediately after this, as Matthew 4:1 states, “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” This order of events is consistent in each of the Gospel accounts, so we begin to wonder if it has some importance here.
Does God’s chosen, coming through the water, then being led to the wilderness and tested with food, remind you of anything?
Read Deuteronomy 8:1-5. Does that shed light on what God is up to when He leads Jesus into the wilderness?
Does it bother you that the Spirit would lead Jesus to be tempted? How can you reconcile this with other scripture?
Israel—God’s chosen people—experience a similar journey in Exodus. We are meant to see the association between Israel and Jesus. Not just that He follows in the footsteps of His ancestors, but that He passes the test which the Israelites failed in the wilderness and fulfills the calling of Israel.
Not only that, but Jesus also serves as an example for us. How many times have you experienced spiritual growth in life, to then be tested spiritually soon after? Jesus was aware of this pattern, and His fasting may have been preparation for the testing that was to come. We would all be wise to notice this pattern so that our growth is not stunted, but rather we can be both humbled and strengthened in overcoming the test.
In John 6:35, Jesus identifies Himself as the “Bread of life”. He likens himself to the manna, the provision for the Israelites in the wilderness. This is a beautiful image; even the manna points to Him, the Bread of Heaven, giving life to the whole world.
See also: 1 Corinthians 10:13; Matthew 6:13; Hebrews 12:4-12; 1 Corinthians 1:27-29; James 1:1-15