Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 4-5.

Every time I read about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, I am reminded of the temptations which any mission can fall into.  The first temptation which we can fall into is that of putting all of our effort into meeting the physical needs of the poorest in our society.  There is real need there, and we should strive to help, but if we fail to remember that teaching people the word of God is just as important as seeing that they are fed, we fail to make the world a better place.  We just make those we “aid” dependent on us.  The second temptation is to do whatever it takes to make change, to make a deal with those who do not honor God to create rules to make things better.  Ultimately, if we turn our focus from worshiping God to making this world a better place, we end up doing neither.  The third temptation is to put all of our attention on the power of God and not doing the hard work of doing His will.  Those who fall for this temptation expect God to solve all of their problems rather than working to make the world a better place.  We need to work to provide for the physical needs of ourselves and others, not just count on God to provide.  We need to point out, and refuse to participate in, systems which victimize people, seeking that they be fixed.  While we must rely on God, we cannot just sit back and expect God to just miraculously make things better when we could have done something.  Jesus’ temptations in this passage are a reminder that we need to keep our focus on God without expecting that we do not need to do anything.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus