Daily Lesson for May 8, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Matthew 4 verse 3:

"And the tempter came and said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.'"

The tempter is so subtle.  Jesus has just come up out of the waters of his baptism and heard the words of God echoing from heaven, "You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased."  Turn the page, however, and Jesus is in the wilderness when the tempter comes with words of reservation and uncertainty.  "If," the tempter says.

Since I am married to an English teacher, I know the difference in the two types of sentences.  God speaks from heaven in the declarative voice, "You are."  But the tempter uses what is called the subjunctive - a voice that expresses hesitancy and doubt.  It is the tempter's subtle way of casting seeds of doubt.  If he had said straight on, "You are not the Son of God," then he would be be rejected outright.  But he is more crafty than that; his trickery is more often one of shade and innuendo than it is outright defiance.

Let me tell you in the declarative voice, you really are a son or daughter of God. You were made in God's image.  You belong in the family of God.  And God delights in you - period.  But the tempter will over and over again seek to erode that sense of belonging with subjective "Ifs".  If you are to be somebody you need to score this on the test, or graduate from this school, or live in this neighborhood, or drive this car, or have a body like this, or have this many people in the pews (this is getting a little too close for comfort), or get these kinds of honors, or at least have kids that do.  The tempter's subjunctives are alive and well in our lives.  They prey upon our insecurities and fears of rejection.  They tell us we must do something to prove we are somebody.  The true mark of our spiritual growth is coming to the understanding that the fact that we are somebody is not something to be proved, but rather accepted.  It is a gift from God, not to be earned, but to be received.

"One does not live by bread alone," Jesus responded to the tempter's subjunctive, "but by every word that comes from God."  The bread we make or consume in his wilderness called life will never be enough; but hearing God's word about us, taking it in to our hearts, trusting and believing in it - this is enough to sustain us forever.  

We are God's children, God declares - and that does it.