There are a thousand reasons why you should trust God with all your heart. But, just knowing that God sent His only son to the cross to die for you, is reason enough. However, many people do not trust or even think there is a God. Despite all the compelling and convincing evidence, they reluctantly decline to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.
Here is an audio clip that has been around since I was a kid. I hope you will find touching and convincing as I have.
The Temptation of Christ, 1854 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Everybody faces temptation. It pursues you like a predator stork its prey. Young or old, temptation entices your wish. It follows you wherever you go. It enters into your thoughts, your dreams, and even into your prayers.
In the book of Matthew 18:7-9, Jesus warns that temptation to sin is sure to come: He says:”Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or disabled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.”
There is absolutely no doubt that God could spare you from such enticement, but He has decided not to. Instead, He uses Jesus as an example for you to emulate. According to Matthew 4:3-7, He endures temptation after He had fasted for forty days and forty nights.
“Now when the devil came to Jesus, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
However, Jesus answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’
Then the devil took Jesus up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:
‘He shall give His angels charge over you.’
And,
‘In their hands; they shall bear you up,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.’
Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”
So when temptation comes, do as Jesus did. He uses the Word of God to turn back every sinful challenge the devil throws at Him. He knew the flesh by itself cannot endure temptation. Still temptation is sure but yielding is sin.
Jesus makes an astonishing statement when He declares: “I amthe bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will; is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:35-40).
When the teachers of the law heard this they began to grumble, “. . . “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” (John 6:42). But Jesus was talking about the spiritual Bread that nourishes the soul.
“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘they will all be taught by God. ‘Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 43-51).
When we think of bread, we think of something that accompanies a meal, not something that is the meal as Jesus indicates.
When Jesus tells us that He is the bread of life, He is also telling us that we will never hunger again. It means that Jesus is enough! When we come to Him and partake of His life, we will never hunger after another savior to redeem us; we will never hunger after another teacher to instruct us.
Jesus’ peace is enough, His presence is enough, His fellowship is enough; His atonement is enough, His Lordship is enough, His Kingdom is enough, His grace is enough, His mercy is enough, and His love is enough. He is the bread of life.
Let's Talk Gospel 