Jesus' purpose when he fasted for 40 days

Jesus‘ purpose

Alone with God

What was Jesus‘ purpose during those 40 days?

People in the Bible were often alone for a long time. During such times, they prayed and thought about God. Often this was before they did an important work for God. Sometimes it was before God had a special message for them. Men like Moses and Elijah were often alone with God for a long time. They were active men. They changed the world for good. When they were alone with God they learned more about him. They learned more about the power of the Holy Spirit.

God wants us to know him better. This is how. Sometimes we can make ourselves nearly crazy with too much activity. He does not want this. He wants us to get right with Him. He wants us to spend time in thought and prayer about him. Then we can be sure about what he wants. When we do something, we do it in God‘s way. We do it for God, with his power.

This was very important for Jesus. He came to show us what God is like. He helps us to understand God. He came to bring us back to God. We could never do this ourselves. Jesus knows that. How could he do it? There is a right way to obey God. Here Jesus established for always that right way. Men admire importance and power. Jesus chose to suffer and to die. The Devil came to him at the beginning. There was a special reason for this. The Devil wanted to make Jesus do wrong things. He wanted Jesus to choose his method, and not God‘s method. This is very important for us, when we work for God.

The Devil's scheme

The Devil is prince of this world. He rules over people. He makes them do wrong things. But Jesus, who is the great friend of people, had come into the world. The Devil saw this. At Jesus‘ baptism God showed it clearly to all. The Devil‘s rule was going to end. Jesus would set men free from that rule. The Devil decided to fight Jesus with all his strength. He had attacked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Here he attacked the second Adam in the desert. The second Adam is Jesus.

How to defeat the Devil

Adam and Eve had done nothing wrong. The Devil tried to make them do wrong things. Christ had also done nothing wrong. The Devil tried to make him choose wrong things too. We can learn two things from this.

• The Devil will try to make us do wrong things. This is not a sin for us. The Devil tried to make even Jesus do wrong things. It is sin only when we give in to it.
• This happens in everybody‘s life. It happened to Jesus. And it will happen to us. Jesus defeated the Devil. So he can give us power to defeat him too.