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I drove a hotrod Lincoln once. It was during a business trip from Tucson, AZ to Las Vegas, NV. With two of Motor Age magazine’s premiere automotive journalists aboard in mid-February, I headed out of Tucson and pointed the car’s hood toward Winslow, AZ. Why did we go to Winslow and not directly to Sin City? Though somewhat out of our way, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I think we all wanted to see the girl that drove the flathead Ford as sung about in the Eagles’ popular song. What we saw instead, was desert… dry, dirty… and very huge desert. To me, the only thing righteous I noted in that dry place was the Saguaro cactus. It poised like a statue with its arms pointing up toward God.., a bit like a congregation praying for rain. The desert I found, you see… wasn’t a friendly place for the uninitiated. Really… I should have known... Jesus was driven out into the dry, desert wilderness by the Holy Spirit. According to the gospels, Jesus spent considerable time in the desert, exactly forty-days… praying and |
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fasting. During that time, our Lord became challenged by his adversary. Satan tried to get Jesus to take advantage of his newly provided power, the power of oneness with our heavenly Father. You see, Satan challenged the Son of God who is also called the Son of Man because he represents all of us, that is… if we had been obedient. The devil tried to trick him using the same way he’d challenged Eve and Adam many eons before. This time he said “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.” You see, like that ancient couple… he challenged Jesus |
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Driving Dry Places! |
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to take advantage of the Father’s creative status in a big way. However, having already been declared the Son of God, as well as a human being… Jesus did not fall for the trick. Now, think of it… if Jesus had answered the challenge and followed the devilish instruction, he would have been recognizing the power of a deceitful angel. So, as we mortals look at the challenge, we realize that too often these demons define sinful hunger just as a physical lack of food. Food is defined by the unbeliever as that which we eat… like those peanut butter sandwiches I don’t want to give up while fasting for the season of Lent. But we human beings hunger in so many ways. Certainly, in sin we hunger in body, but also in our mind and spirit. Knowing the Law and Prophets, however, as the word written in scripture, Jesus answered the demonic challenge by quoting text handed down in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy (see Deuteronomy 8:3). You see, Jesus knew what God the Father had already given to us in scripture. God supplied the answers needed. |
