Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Matthew 4:4
“Jesus understood that life is not ultimately sustained by what we eat, but by God’s will. True life is to be found in Him and not merely by consuming His gifts.
The temptation Jesus faced in the wilderness is one we face every day. According to The New York Times, each American is exposed to 3,500 desire-inducing ads a day, each one promising us the life we’ve always wanted is just one purchase away. Rodney Clapp says, “The consumer is schooled in insatiability. He or she is never to be satisfied— at least not for long. The consumer is tutored that people basically consist of unmet needs that can only be appeased by commodified goods and experiences.”
The world, like Jesus’ enemy, tells us that we are defined by our desires, and the purpose of life is to satisfy them. To be fair, not every desire is ungodly or even unhealthy. There is nothing immoral about desiring food as Jesus did in the wilderness. The problem is that we have elevated desires to the status of rights and the thought that a desire should go unfulfilled, even temporarily, or that we should willingly deny ourselves in order to generously bless others, is utterly inconceivable to most people today. To deny ourselves a desire, we are told, is to deny our very identity and purpose! We have made our desires, rather than our Creator, the goal of life. And in this consumeristic soil, generosity is nearly impossible to cultivate.
That is why, more than ever, we need to hear the wisdom of Jesus: We do not live by bread alone. We are more than our desires, and the purpose of life is more than satisfying our natural longings however legitimate they may be. True life flows from the Living God, and our deepest longings are ultimately only satisfied in union with Him.
Real generosity will only be cultivated in our lives when we see God Himself, rather than material things, as the source of our life and well-being.”
Skye Jethani in Whole Life Generosity: Living in Relationship, Gratitude, and Release (Generous Church: Galley Edition) 18-19. Special thanks to Patrick Johnson and Generous Church for making this PDF available for people to study.
As I think about opening a conference with “Abundant” as the theme this week, my aim will be to connect people to the Living God who is our source of life and well-being. I am learning that to do this for the audience or for you as a Meditations reader, I must get your focus off that which the world tells you to fix your gaze.
You are more than your desires, and you are not the provider of those desires. The purpose of the Christian life is not to slice of a portion for God and then live on the rest as you wish to meet your consumptive needs. Notice how you become the center of that universe in that paradigm. God made you and me to live in union with Him.
But how do we do that? This part took me a while to figure out, too long perhaps, but it’s right in the heart of all of Jesus’ teachings. We need to let go of the other god that competes for our trust: money. The only way we take hold of “true life” is to enjoy and share all God supplies (1 Timothy 6:17-19). It’s our role in our brief time on earth.