“And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost... was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil.... And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from Him for a season. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4:12,13-14).
I recently sent a 40th-birthday greeting to a dear brother in Christ. After a bit of friendly teasing I mentioned, “So it’s 40 is it? Well, on your birthday you will then have been fully tested as a man in this world—and all you will be able to do is say in agreement with God’s estimation of the flesh: ‘In... my flesh dwelleth no good thing’.”
In replying, the brother said, “Fully tested? I was just thinking this morning about being 40 and feeling not much different than 20. Then it came to me that what we are at 40 is the result of the course we set at 20. We don’t suddenly mature and become what we know we should be if we live our youth doing what we want. Now I’m looking ahead to 60, if the Lord leaves us here, and realizing that we will be at 60 what our course is at 40. That is a very searching thought!”
A very probing thought, indeed! While believers have every reason to expect the immediate return of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, it is good to consider where the present course we’re taking will end. In Proverbs 14:15 it is the “simple” (one devoid of godly discernment) who believes all he hears, while the “prudent man looketh well to his going.”
The heart is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”; it cannot be trusted! Nor can we believe the world, “for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). When the enemy of our soul, Satan, speaks, he “speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own.... He is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44).
The “new man” in Christ (Eph. 2:15; 4:24) has the Lord Jesus “the way, the truth, and the life” as his glorious Object. He, ever divine and ever Son from eternity, was “fully tested” as a man in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13), there showing forth in glorious victory the pure meal of His perfect manhood. Every test He faced only proved that He walked a perfect, unwavering path, always obedient and fully pleasing to His God and Father.
Now He has “given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). Thus the only change that the Spirit of God contemplates in the life of a believer is that each should continue to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).
Ed.