Our devotion this week, Satan’s Go-To Temptation Against You, was written by J.D. Greear can be found online here.
Defeating Satan Through Defiant Declaration
If Satan’s main aim is to distract us from God’s word, it makes sense that the primary way we overcome Satan’s temptations is by intentional meditation on God’s word. That’s true. But it may not be true in the way you think.
Many people interpret the big point of Jesus’s temptation like this: the way you overcome Satan is by knowing more Scripture than he does. Growing up, I envisioned this like some kind of Harry Potter duel. Satan throws a temptation, and you ward it off by going, “Oh no you don’t! First Peter 3:8!” Bam! Then Satan comes back with another one, and you say, “Ah, but I know the genealogy between Eliud and Jehoiachin!” And Satan says, “Whoa, I can’t touch that. Foiled again by AWANA!”
Here’s the problem with that: No matter how many years you’ve memorized Scripture, Satan still knows more verses than you. He’s had centuries of practice. And reciting the one verse you happen to know (“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”) isn’t going to automatically send him running away in fear.
There is something specific about God’s word that Jesus recalls, something that undergirds every verse he quotes, something so powerful that not even Satan, with all his knowledge, can refute it — his identity in the Father’s eyes. Remember? Satan said, “If you are the Son of God.” Everything Jesus quotes ultimately goes back to the security he possesses in who he is before God. The Father gave Jesus an identity-defining period, and he rested in it.
Pray today that you could rest in the identity that God has given you. Remember that He calls you His child, His beloved, His treasure.
