Jesus Was Tempted Too

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights He fasted and became very hungry.” - Matthew 4:1 
 
Yesterday, we looked at the amazing perfection of Jesus’ life. If you do not know, Jesus lived 33 years on earth. Before He died on the cross for all our sins, He walked the earth completely blameless. He never sinned...not once.

That does not mean He was not tempted. Some people get it mixed up, and they think Jesus came to earth just as an extension of God. But that’s only partly true. See, Jesus was both fully God AND fully human. This means all of the things you experience, see, and feel Jesus experienced, saw, and felt.  

He walked the earth fully human just as much as He was fully God. All of the temptations we have and that we have given into Jesus experienced. The only difference was He didn’t give in.
 
Matthew 4 tells us of when Jesus was tempted. Verse 1 says, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights He fasted and became very hungry.”

See, Satan asked God if he could tempt Jesus. And so God gave Satan permission. And you know what? Satan used the same temptations he uses on us. He tempted Jesus with three different temptations, all appealing to the same three things we appeal to.  

Over the next three days, we will look deeper into the specifics of those temptations. But before we do that, I want you to understand something. Jesus, fully human, faced the EXACT same temptations you and I face today. Satan’s strategy then was no different then from what it is now.
The same temptations that we fall into time and time again Jesus faced. And yet He did not sin. And it is because He was blameless, that He was able to go to the cross and carry the weight of our sin.

He who knew no sin came to be sin for YOU and for ME. But make no mistake about it, Jesus was tempted. He just lived, amazingly and perfectly as only God’s Son could!