An Opportune Time

Daniel 7-8; Psalms 137; Luke 4  

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’…When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.”

Luke 4:1-3, 13

The enemy of our souls, Satan, tempts and tests us after our spiritual victories and defeats. He tested Jesus when he was full of the Spirit and when he felt weak after forty days of fasting. The devil is always looking for his “opportune time” to cause us to stumble and fall. Our times of greatest vulnerability to temptation often come when we are feeling strong, or very weak. If Jesus was tested and tempted by Satan, so will we be. Our weapons, like Jesus,’ are the authority of God’s Word and the power of the Holy Spirit. We, too, can resist the devil in the name of Jesus Christ. The reason Jesus came was to destroy the devil’s work in our lives and in this world (1 John 3:8). We are in a war, and we have victory in Christ through his finished work on the cross.

“Lord Jesus, thank you for teaching me how to resist temptation, for your glory.”