First thought to cross my mind is that God sometimes sends us into temptation. Is this a test? It is only spoken off that Jesus got tempted by the devil after His 40 days and nights of fasting.

Therefore it means that Jesus had to deny His flesh’s needs to be fully present in the Spirit. Jesus is God having a human experience because He is God and human at the same time but chooses to push the limits of what we think our bodies are capable of. Not to eat for 40 days means to deny the hunger of your body.

This clearly shows that Jesus needed to live from His Spirit. Fasting is a spiritual act, otherwise it is basically a hunger strike. To fast there is a purpose involved. To become more intensely in tune with the Spirit.

As we know this was before the new big season of Jesus’ life in ministry. So He had to prepare Himself Spiritually to be able to step into this role God has in store for Him to execute on His magnificent plan.

After the 40 days, spiritual temptation came after Jesus denied His own body’s cravings.

“Afterwards he was hungry” clearly stating of 40 days no eating, Jesus was very very hungry. The devil came to pick on Jesus a little bit harder than the flesh’s voice of what it wants. Jesus has shown self-control over the body for the past 40 days.

What happens when an external force comes in to tempt you?

The enemy tempts you with the easiest thing first. Low hanging fruit people would call it.

The devil rephrases the basic flesh’s craving into something far more significant than what your purpose for self-control is. Prove Yourself.

REMEMBER: You do not have to prove yourself to anyone, especially when you are being obedient to God. Tempters comes after the “Prove yourself” first to lead you to being closer to breaking your self-control, resulting in this case, disobeying God.

Jesus was hungry but He had Godly wisdom to know what the devil was scheming. If He did prove Himself to be the Son of God by turning the stones into bread, food would be right under His nose to eat, bringing temptation even closer. The thing is not to make right or wrong decisions, but the wise decision. Wise choices takes you away from the line of tripping over the line of temptation. Your’e not dancing right next to it.

Enemy’s Tactic: Tempt you to bring you closer to disobey God by using pride.

The Counter: Jesus went back to scripture. Set in ink. ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ But it’s not scripture only He’s referring back to. Jesus states about God specifically that is in scripture.

Instead of indulging into the flesh by acting from pride, go back to what is written in scripture. What is written takes away the errors of your mind playing tricks on you of what you remember. The enemy tempts us in away that our minds try to create loopholes to get us closer to be disobedient towards God. That why we need to make statements about God.

What strikes me is that the devil might come to you and replace the words “If You are the Son of God” to “If you are the Child of God” to tempt you further by weaponizing the Word of God.

Enemy Tactic: Because you’re the Child of God, then do this, or that because scripture says…

The Counter: Go back to scripture but find the context and other points supporting it. The enemy loves to use 99% truth while taking out the 1% that completes the message. It loves to paint a picture that is wapred from the true context.

There is an amount of faith risk we do have to take for God, but God did give us a brain to think of what aligns with His will, not what seems like we have to prove to God. And the simplest counter is to tell the devil to stop tempting you because God does not tempt His children. Again, stating about God. Bring God in when the enemy tries to tempt you because God is.

If no temptation works, the enemy will come to present you the most it can give but at a exceptional costly price. ‘Give up everything you have and worship me so I can give you “everything.”’

Sounds very familiar? We tend to see this reoccur in movies, novels, stories and we shout “Noooo, how could this character be so dumb? Didn’t this person witness what the other guy went through? I wouldn’t have done that.” But how many times does it happen to us but we just turn a blind eye?

God is the creator of everything, so everything already belongs to God.

The devil neglected that Jesus is God who is the creator and author of all things because he wants Jesus to fall below him. To fool you, the devil pretends that he is in control and owns everything. [Which is not true] Instead of Jesus going to His Father “is” the creator, He uses a far greater response “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”

Jesus used His authority and knew who His Father is and Who is His King, and who He is to God. He submitted to God and claimed the authority of the true God.

Enemy Tactic: Give the most appealing offer ever in exchange for your soul and disobedience towards God. Bondages.

COUNTER: Resistance. Resist your strongest desires. Do as Mark 8:34 states for Jesus gave us Godly wisdom to follow.

It was never said following Jesus would be easy, but what God gives is far greater than what any other being can offer [which is a whole different newsletter of it’s own talking about that]. When you resist the enemy, God will follow through and come to aid you. He always comes through, even when it doesn’t seem like it.

Fasting is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly [which I learnt the long way].

I know that you get dietary fasting, but those are actually more like “hunger strikes” according to me, if there’s no spiritual relevance to it. Also, the intention behind it should be pure, not filled with social pressure or “I want to fast to prove that I can do it and then tell everyone what I did”.

The aim of fasting is not to serve yourself but as an act to sacrifice you body’s desires to serve and become more intimate with God. You become more in tune with your spirit for that is where you are living from. [read more about living from the Spirit here] Fasting is something between you and God. Tell the close ones when that you’re fasting so they can help you instead of making it harder. If people offer food, you are allowed to tell them your’e fasting if they ask you after declining.

It is an act of self-control and obedience towards God. Sounds very much like the fruit of the Spirit hey?

The amazing thing about fasting is that it can be with anything. It can be fasting from music, gaming, coffee, the people who you hang out with, food, sugars etc.

Then you get another type of fasting which is a stepping stone to quitting addictions. It is refraining yourself from that vice and committing it and yourself to God. Repentance is the first step.

To reframe your mind to fasting as a starting point gives the intentionality of “one day at a time” but you do know in the back of your head God will make you carry on forever more. When you “fast” from the vice, you become far more intentional at the start to give it over to Him and replacing God with it. Because you’re now more in fellowship with God, He’ll start guiding you to the next step to assist you with your new growing lifestyle.

I believe when you “quit” an addiction it creates a different mindset because it’s not God centered. When you take the approach of fasting forever from it, you make God the centre piece and not your own power…