What Happens After the Call

"Then the Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the devil." - Matthew 4:1


My little brothers have this misconception that once you get touched by God it's this one time deal that changes the rest of your life. It can be, but they think that after that, it all gets better, our faith becomes solid and everything is great. There's nothing further from the truth.

The first time Jesus makes an appearance in the gospels as an adult was during His baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. John recognized Him to be the Christ and while baptizing Him, the sky opened up and the voice of God was heard saying that Jesus was His son, His beloved. You have to remember, Jesus was also fully human, so for a human to have experienced something so profound, it had to have really shaken Him up and touched Him. What do you do after such an extraordinary touch from God? I think most people would go off by themselves to pray and try to make sense of what just happened and how they're supposed to respond to God next.

As we can see from this verse above, the Spirit led Jesus into the desert right after His baptism to be tempted by the devil. The desert was where Jesus went to think about what happens next, what He was supposed to do, but it also symbolizes what we all go through as soon as we feel God's presence come into our lives. What happens is that it feels like God withdraws. Like He touched us, but then pulls away. Jesus was also in a symbolic desert. He was alone and it felt like He was stripped away from the protection of God and vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy. At this point, we all become vulnerable. We forget the touch we received from God and when the devil comes around to rob us of the experience we had (and he will do this) we are tempted by sins of the flesh, we might want to test God or we become arrogant and think we don't need God and what we felt before wasn't true. And the worst part of it is that this happens and we don't realize it's happening. If these pitfalls were so obvious, none of us would sin. In the desert, when He felt alone and without God, the devil tempted Jesus with sins of the flesh, he tempted Him to show His power if He really was so beloved by God, and he tried to offer Jesus all the powers in the world. As tired and exhausted as Jesus was, He fought back the temptation. How did He do this? Was it because He was God? No, it was because Jesus knew God's promises and God's Word. To each and every attack of the devil, Jesus was able to resist with scripture and faith.

This is why we all need to remain strong in the faith and strong in the Word of God. When we experience a touch from God, there will be moments where we will not perceive the presence of God and we will be tempted and attacked by the devil. All this is necessary so that we grow and become truly powerful in the Lord... so that we are not easily knocked around. But if you are not prepared, on the day of temptation, you will fall. Now is the moment to prepare. Now is the moment to pray and ask for the Lord's protection so that when we are called out into the desert, we can be like Christ and face anything.

Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, You equipped me with all I need to fight the enemy. Now that I have been filled with Your Spirit, prepare me for my dark night and prepare me for battle with the enemy. Lord, cover me with Your blessing so that I may never fall and lose sight of the work You want to do in me. In Your Name we pray, amen.