Being Taught and Being Tested

AM Psalm [70], 71 • PM Psalm 74
Jer. 4:9-10,19-28 • Rom. 2:12-24 • John 5:19-29

Lent is a time we set aside every year to remember how Jesus responded to hearing the voice of God at his baptism. He left town and stripped away worldly comforts for forty days so that he could concentrate on hearing his call even more clearly.

Jesus did not talk with God as he fasted in the wilderness in the way that Moses talked with God when he was given the ten commandments on Mount Sinai. God taught Moses the law so that he could pass it to the other Israelites. Jesus, who knew the law already, spent a lot of time talking with Satan instead.

I like to imagine these arguments as being fruitful for Jesus. He did not need his Father’s teaching. Instead, he needed to prepare himself for ministry in a different way. Romans 2:13 says, “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. “ In rejecting Satan’s temptations of power and comfort, Jesus had also accepted God’s law of mercy and love.

Moses and Jesus spent time in solitude for different reasons. One was taught, and one was tested. How do you feel you are being led into deeper spirituality? Does your lenten journey resemble Moses’s, full of listening and learning? Or does it feel like Jesus’s, where you are actively being tempted to break promises?

Written by Haley Hixson

Thank you for teaching us about type-scenes in Adult Forum last November, Dr Lora Walsh! I meditated upon them as I was writing this reflection. (The whole series can be found here, and the specific lesson is here.)