Matthew 4

Jesus went out into the desert and fasted for forty days. After this, He was tempted by the devil three times:

• To make stones into bread to satisfy His hunger.
• To throw Himself off of the temple so that angels would catch Him to prove Himself to the world.
  
• To worship the devil in order to obtain a worldly kingdom.
  

Each time, Jesus countered the temptations with scripture. For the second temptation, the devil actually used scripture to tempt Jesus! The three scriptures Jesus used all came from Deuteronomy, near the end of the forty years of wandering in the desert (not a coincidence!).

• Man does not live by bread alone (Deut 8:3)
• Do not test the Lord your God (Deut 6:16)
• Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him (Deut 6:13)

What a perfect example of how to deal with temptations when they come along! Turn to the Lord and His word. Seek guidance from the source of all truth and don't let someone else convince you something is right when you know it's wrong.


After this Jesus began His ministry and selected his first disciples - Andrew, Simon Peter, James, and John. They were fishermen by trade, but Jesus made them a better offer. He told them they could be fishers of men. They didn't even have to think about it; they just dropped what they were doing and followed Him. They would spend the next few years with Jesus learning what it meant to "fish" for men.

What are you busy with in your life? What is Jesus calling you to put down in order to follow Him? What's stopping you?