When the Lord was in the wilderness, after His baptism, the environment was conducive to intense temptations. The choosing of this environment we are not told why, though many plausible reasons have been given us why the wild was the where Jesus was tempted.

Though the location might be considered irrelevant, the kind of temptation that Jesus endured was not. Jesus was tempted in particular areas and with intensity that we can relate to, though I dare say the intensity Jesus faced is not our own. Whether or not the intensity of Jesus’ temptation was as strong as ours, the point is that which Jesus faced, we also face.

In the answers given by Jesus, let us learn that these need to be our answers to the temptations we also experience. Before one might think of these scriptural answers as simplistic, be sure to reflect on the substance of Scripture given by the Lord to Satan.

For instance, think about one of those answers Jesus gave Satan when Satan tempted Him with turning stones into bread (food). One might reply against the adequacy of this answer because of the perceived disconnect between food to sustain in the here and now while God’s word is not something one can physically eat. “How does this help?” someone might reply!

When your physical food is gone (and one day it will be), then to whom do you turn for strength to sustain. If one gives up the Lord word for food, then for what other immediate “need” will one compromise the Lord’s way? This gets to the very substance of who we are. In the context of Deuteronomy 8 (which I encourage you to read), the Lord gave exhortations toward remembrance and forgetting. When the focus is on one’s need, then the Lord is forgotten. Have we put emphasis on our very needs, or is emphasis on Him who really sustains when life’s experiences forgetting?