Luke 4:1-4:13
Last week we saw that the previous chapter of Luke dealt with Jesus’ baptism. During this baptism we saw Jesus anointed by the Holy Spirit in the appearance of a dove, and we heard God the Father affirm Jesus by saying, “You are my Son, whom I love. With You I am well pleased.” With such glowing words, one might expect God’s tasks for Jesus to be easy. But as we shall see that with God, “love” does not mean the same thing as “easy.”
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry. – Luke 4:1-2
Why does Luke reiterate that Jesus is “full of the Holy Spirit”? In other locations in Luke we have seen that when he uses this wording he is saying that the person is being led by the Holy Spirit. In fact, in the parallel passage in the gospel of Mark, we see a much stronger wording:
At once the Spirit sent Him out into the desert. – Mark 1:12
The Greek word Mark uses for “sent out” is ekballo, which means to drive out or to cast out. The KJV is as follows: Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. It is the same word used to describe the casting out of demons and the casting of people into the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth!
Does this mean the Spirit kicked Jesus out into the desert and left Him there? No, because of the wording in the Luke passage. Here it is again:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry. – Luke 4:1-2
When it says “Jesus was led by the Spirit in the desert,” the verb tense for “led” in Greek implies continuous action. Led continually. So the Holy Spirit rather abruptly directed Jesus to high-tail it to the desert, but in the desert, the Holy Spirit was with Him and led Him every step of the way.
While in the desert, he fasted. It would appear this too was a Spirit-confirmed, Spirit-led choice. It may not have been deliberate in the sense of having brought food and being told by the Spirit not to eat it; instead, it may have simply been the Spirit continually directing Him from place to face where there was no food.
Now, it almost reminds me of British humor, the way Luke so completely understates the situation for Jesus. He ate nothing during those forty days, and at the end of them he was, well, uh, hungry.
Now it is true that if one fasts for an extended period of time, you hit a “wall of hunger” at about 4 or 5 or 6 days out that is similar to the “wall of pain” marathon runners experience about a third or a half of the way out. Let’s talk about runners for a moment. After that peak, the pain diminishes, but it is still significant. What was that “wall”? It was your body’s desperate message to you to STOP! Your body is saying, “You are going to KILL us! Stop now!” Was your body right? If you train gradually and appropriately, then probably not, although I can’t make you any guarantees. Eventually most runners can become able to get past their “wall.” Now, what if a runner were to try to run a double-length, triple-length, or quadruple-length marathon? Eventually, another “wall of pain” would appear, and although it is likely to not be as strong-felt as the first wall, this time your body is right. You really are going to KILL yourself if you run forever.
Now in fasting, the “wall of hunger” generally appears before the first week is out. Modern techniques to fasting do suggest ways to go up to 40 days, but they generally suggest drinking as much juice as you like. I am certain that Jesus was not on a juice fast. He didn’t have a bunch of cans of V8 or a stash of lemonade hidden in a cave. And He was on the move, exposed to the harsh elements of the desert, not in a nice temperature-controlled home. All of this made His fast much more difficult. After 40 days of this, He was literally starving to death. He was hitting that “second” wall, not the first one.
The devil said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'" – Luke 4:3-4
Reading the first two verses carefully, I conclude that this is not really the devil’s first temptation. It seems that the devil has been busy tempting Jesus for this entire time. But now, on this last day, Satan really pulls out all the stops. What is the first word? If. What a loaded word! What does “if” communicate? It says, “I don’t really believe you.” This is a taunt. What is it an appeal to? Pride. It says, “Show me that you are what you say you are.”
What is the temptation to do? To sin, but how? How is telling the stone to become bread sin? Jesus is God, isn’t He? Can’t He do anything He wants? There is no “Thou shalt not tell stones to become bread” in the Bible anywhere that I know of. It is sin because Jesus chose to become emptied, to be come “nothing” when He took on human form as a helpless baby to enter this world, and He agreed to give up His own will while He remained on earth. The Holy Spirit, constantly with Him, must have warned Him, “This is not the Father’s will. The Father wants you to continue to fast, trusting Him even over the food you need to survive. If this means you are to die today of starvation, so be it.”
Satan’s temptation was craftily worded to hide the depths of treachery in it, much like His temptation of the forbidden fruit was craftily worded to hide the depths of sin in that choice. The first temptation could therefore be summarized: Violate the Father’s will.
In fact, in some ways these are very similar temptations. Satan is asking Jesus to eat something so that He will have enhanced power. (Jesus would be picking back up some of what He had emptied Himself of when He came to earth.) Similarly, Adam was really being offered enhanced power – in his case the power of knowledge of good and evil. But where Adam failed, Jesus overcame. He felt the full force of the temptation, something I believe greater than any temptation we might ever face, with effort rejected it, and put the devil in his place by quoting from scripture, “Man does not live on bread alone.” The quote comes from Deut. 8:3, which reads in part, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
I want to say one more things about this temptation. Jesus was weak, starving, and exhausted. How good are you at handling temptation when you are in pain? Sick? Worn out? Multiply this by a thousand and you begin to approach the situation Jesus was in. And compare this temptation to the kinds of things we are tempted with – to give in to anger, or the desire for revenge, or for lust, or to fulfill a craving for a substance we should not have. Jesus was simply offered a way to get some bread! Nobody would see. Nobody would know. It wouldn’t hurt anyone else. What we do with our own bodies doesn’t matter, right? It’s not a “big” sin. Have you ever had any of these thoughts? I’m sure you have. We all have. But they are lies from Satan. Jesus, I am sure, being fully human, felt them too. And you talk about a craving! I am sure He craved some nice, fresh-baked, steaming, rock-shaped bread! No craving you have ever felt could top this one.
Now, was the devil done? Was he ready to give up, call it a fair fight, and move on? No way…
The devil led Him up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And He said to Him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'" – Luke 4:5-8
Jesus is still following the Holy Spirit. When the devil says, “follow me,” Jesus looks to the Spirit, who says, “Yes, the Father would have You follow him.” Remember Jesus’ extreme hunger and weakness. Now He must climb this tall place, probably a mountain. At the top, Satan gives Him a vision, that of all the kingdoms of the world. Did Jesus know about these kingdoms before this? Not since He had come to earth as a baby, I believe. In fact, Satan was showing Jesus something nobody on earth had ever seen before – the whole earth. In this view, Herod’s Judea looked tiny. Even that vast empire of Rome was pretty small. In an instant, Jesus saw up north towards Northern Europe and into Russia, then east to China and the coastal civilizations, then south towards the vast empires comprising India, then south into the large continent of Africa, and then a hop over a humongous ocean to Antarctica, and then to the huge Americas, including the various civilizations in them. It would like being the first person in history to see, in an instant, that there are actually civilizations on Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, all hidden until this moment, with strange and foreign ways, countless cultures. What an overwhelming vision!
“I will give them all to you, for they are mine to give. Just worship me, and you get everything.” What a temptation! The word for worship here, proskuneo, implies the literal idea of falling at someone’s feet and kissing them, much like one disreputable woman once did to Jesus’ feet. A the time of Jesus, it could still have the literal meaning, but more often it simply implied giving some action showing that you accept the proposition, strings attached. Isn’t it interesting that the same word could mean such different things? Well, maybe they are not as different as we like to think they are.
Jesus’ reply is from Deut. 6:13. “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” Only. No attached strings are allowed, not even for a seemingly good cause. The ends do not justify the means.
Again I want to examine this temptation a little more. What was Jesus being offered? The chance to rule the world in love and peace, to make it right. And it is an outright gift. These lands and kingdoms will be 100% Jesus’ to rule!
There’s just one problem: Jesus won’t be Jesus anymore, the sinless, beloved, Son of God. I don’t even really know what this would have meant, except that in terms of the destructive force on the universe, it would have made Adam’s sin seem tiny in comparison. Satan, one of God’s creation, would have managed to destroy His creator. He would have won. It is incomprehensible. How would I summarize this second temptation? There are many ways to describe it. I like the following two words: Compromise and rationalize.
Every time we are tempted to bend the rules, just this time, to do something we shouldn’t for a good cause, such as provide for our family, we are experiencing a tiny, tiny version of Jesus’ temptation here. And there even more subtle ways we fall into this. What about willingly listening in to gossip at work so as to be seen as just one of the guys? What about turning a blind eye to something wrong a coworker does? What about obeying your boss in things that you call “grey” but you really know are wrong? Jesus understands. He has been there in a much, much, greater way.
Now, was Satan done? No way! Those were just warm-ups to the main event!
The devil led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Him until an opportune time. – Luke 4:9-13
Starving Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit, is led with the devil to Jersualem where he stood on a towering point on the Temple. Here Satan has an odd request: Throw Yourself down. And then he shows how clever he is by quoting some scripture himself: Psalm 91:11-12.
What is this temptation about? Satan is saying, “Look, man, you are Superman! Don’t you get it? You are God! You can do anything! The angels will follow you, even preventing your injury! Don’t you get it? You are in charge! Just take charge!”
This is a really striking thing coming from Satan, himself a fallen prince of angels. This is exactly what Satan had done to fall. He told God, “Look, old man, I’m Superangel! My angels love me and will follow me wherever I go, and whatever I do. They won’t let anything happen to me. You try to stop me and there will be war!” And in fact that is exactly what happened. There was a great war in heaven, and Satan and his following angels (one-third of all the angels) were cast out of heaven.
Satan is trying to turn Jesus into someone just like him. The temptation is to stop following your authority, to do what you want. After all, what He wants, is kind of stinky. Look Jesus, He just starved you for the last 40 days! And do you know what He is going to do to you later? Do you know why He sent you here? Do you want to do that? Jesus’ answer is short, biblical, and sweet: Do not put the Lord your God to the test (Deut. 6:16).
How big a temptation was this? It wasn’t really about throwing Himself down at all. It was about whether He would follow after Father God no matter how hard it became. Only 40 days ago, Jesus was being anointed by the Holy Spirit, being told by God the Father that He was loved. Now He is starving, being tormented by the most crafty, verbally powerful fallen angel in all creation. What kind of love is this? Can He endure more? Years of it? Can He even look at where this will go? To when God the Father who says He loves Him will forsake Him and allow Him to be tortured and crucified, put up on a cross on a hill? How tempting will it be then to throw Himself down so that His angels, His angels, will be sure to lift Him up and protect Him? This third temptation is really all about idolatry, choosing something (self) over God.
I believe that every temptation, ultimately, boils down to a kind of idolatry. We may not see it this way, but when we are tempted to sin, we are really being tempted to question God’s love. Of you, God says, You are my son (or daughter), whom I love! Follow Me! When we give in to our temptations to sin we are saying we would rather love ourselves and what we want more than we would love God.
Understand that Jesus went through this Himself! He sympathizes with us! We cannot possibly shock Him with either the depths of depravity of our temptations or of our weakness of faith. We cannot possibly make Him turn His back on us, if we call out to Him for help. As I said last week, we don’t first get our life together and then come to God; we simply admit to Him that our life is a mess! In faith, and it doesn’t take much faith – a mustard seed’s worth is enough – we come to Him ask Him to help us to turn our lives around. And He will do it!
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. – Hebrews 4:14-16
Last week we saw that the previous chapter of Luke dealt with Jesus’ baptism. During this baptism we saw Jesus anointed by the Holy Spirit in the appearance of a dove, and we heard God the Father affirm Jesus by saying, “You are my Son, whom I love. With You I am well pleased.” With such glowing words, one might expect God’s tasks for Jesus to be easy. But as we shall see that with God, “love” does not mean the same thing as “easy.”Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry. – Luke 4:1-2
Why does Luke reiterate that Jesus is “full of the Holy Spirit”? In other locations in Luke we have seen that when he uses this wording he is saying that the person is being led by the Holy Spirit. In fact, in the parallel passage in the gospel of Mark, we see a much stronger wording:
At once the Spirit sent Him out into the desert. – Mark 1:12
The Greek word Mark uses for “sent out” is ekballo, which means to drive out or to cast out. The KJV is as follows: Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. It is the same word used to describe the casting out of demons and the casting of people into the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth!
Does this mean the Spirit kicked Jesus out into the desert and left Him there? No, because of the wording in the Luke passage. Here it is again:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry. – Luke 4:1-2
When it says “Jesus was led by the Spirit in the desert,” the verb tense for “led” in Greek implies continuous action. Led continually. So the Holy Spirit rather abruptly directed Jesus to high-tail it to the desert, but in the desert, the Holy Spirit was with Him and led Him every step of the way.
While in the desert, he fasted. It would appear this too was a Spirit-confirmed, Spirit-led choice. It may not have been deliberate in the sense of having brought food and being told by the Spirit not to eat it; instead, it may have simply been the Spirit continually directing Him from place to face where there was no food.
Now, it almost reminds me of British humor, the way Luke so completely understates the situation for Jesus. He ate nothing during those forty days, and at the end of them he was, well, uh, hungry.
Now it is true that if one fasts for an extended period of time, you hit a “wall of hunger” at about 4 or 5 or 6 days out that is similar to the “wall of pain” marathon runners experience about a third or a half of the way out. Let’s talk about runners for a moment. After that peak, the pain diminishes, but it is still significant. What was that “wall”? It was your body’s desperate message to you to STOP! Your body is saying, “You are going to KILL us! Stop now!” Was your body right? If you train gradually and appropriately, then probably not, although I can’t make you any guarantees. Eventually most runners can become able to get past their “wall.” Now, what if a runner were to try to run a double-length, triple-length, or quadruple-length marathon? Eventually, another “wall of pain” would appear, and although it is likely to not be as strong-felt as the first wall, this time your body is right. You really are going to KILL yourself if you run forever.
Now in fasting, the “wall of hunger” generally appears before the first week is out. Modern techniques to fasting do suggest ways to go up to 40 days, but they generally suggest drinking as much juice as you like. I am certain that Jesus was not on a juice fast. He didn’t have a bunch of cans of V8 or a stash of lemonade hidden in a cave. And He was on the move, exposed to the harsh elements of the desert, not in a nice temperature-controlled home. All of this made His fast much more difficult. After 40 days of this, He was literally starving to death. He was hitting that “second” wall, not the first one.
The devil said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'" – Luke 4:3-4
Reading the first two verses carefully, I conclude that this is not really the devil’s first temptation. It seems that the devil has been busy tempting Jesus for this entire time. But now, on this last day, Satan really pulls out all the stops. What is the first word? If. What a loaded word! What does “if” communicate? It says, “I don’t really believe you.” This is a taunt. What is it an appeal to? Pride. It says, “Show me that you are what you say you are.”
What is the temptation to do? To sin, but how? How is telling the stone to become bread sin? Jesus is God, isn’t He? Can’t He do anything He wants? There is no “Thou shalt not tell stones to become bread” in the Bible anywhere that I know of. It is sin because Jesus chose to become emptied, to be come “nothing” when He took on human form as a helpless baby to enter this world, and He agreed to give up His own will while He remained on earth. The Holy Spirit, constantly with Him, must have warned Him, “This is not the Father’s will. The Father wants you to continue to fast, trusting Him even over the food you need to survive. If this means you are to die today of starvation, so be it.”
Satan’s temptation was craftily worded to hide the depths of treachery in it, much like His temptation of the forbidden fruit was craftily worded to hide the depths of sin in that choice. The first temptation could therefore be summarized: Violate the Father’s will.
In fact, in some ways these are very similar temptations. Satan is asking Jesus to eat something so that He will have enhanced power. (Jesus would be picking back up some of what He had emptied Himself of when He came to earth.) Similarly, Adam was really being offered enhanced power – in his case the power of knowledge of good and evil. But where Adam failed, Jesus overcame. He felt the full force of the temptation, something I believe greater than any temptation we might ever face, with effort rejected it, and put the devil in his place by quoting from scripture, “Man does not live on bread alone.” The quote comes from Deut. 8:3, which reads in part, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
I want to say one more things about this temptation. Jesus was weak, starving, and exhausted. How good are you at handling temptation when you are in pain? Sick? Worn out? Multiply this by a thousand and you begin to approach the situation Jesus was in. And compare this temptation to the kinds of things we are tempted with – to give in to anger, or the desire for revenge, or for lust, or to fulfill a craving for a substance we should not have. Jesus was simply offered a way to get some bread! Nobody would see. Nobody would know. It wouldn’t hurt anyone else. What we do with our own bodies doesn’t matter, right? It’s not a “big” sin. Have you ever had any of these thoughts? I’m sure you have. We all have. But they are lies from Satan. Jesus, I am sure, being fully human, felt them too. And you talk about a craving! I am sure He craved some nice, fresh-baked, steaming, rock-shaped bread! No craving you have ever felt could top this one.
Now, was the devil done? Was he ready to give up, call it a fair fight, and move on? No way…
The devil led Him up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And He said to Him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'" – Luke 4:5-8
Jesus is still following the Holy Spirit. When the devil says, “follow me,” Jesus looks to the Spirit, who says, “Yes, the Father would have You follow him.” Remember Jesus’ extreme hunger and weakness. Now He must climb this tall place, probably a mountain. At the top, Satan gives Him a vision, that of all the kingdoms of the world. Did Jesus know about these kingdoms before this? Not since He had come to earth as a baby, I believe. In fact, Satan was showing Jesus something nobody on earth had ever seen before – the whole earth. In this view, Herod’s Judea looked tiny. Even that vast empire of Rome was pretty small. In an instant, Jesus saw up north towards Northern Europe and into Russia, then east to China and the coastal civilizations, then south towards the vast empires comprising India, then south into the large continent of Africa, and then a hop over a humongous ocean to Antarctica, and then to the huge Americas, including the various civilizations in them. It would like being the first person in history to see, in an instant, that there are actually civilizations on Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, all hidden until this moment, with strange and foreign ways, countless cultures. What an overwhelming vision!
“I will give them all to you, for they are mine to give. Just worship me, and you get everything.” What a temptation! The word for worship here, proskuneo, implies the literal idea of falling at someone’s feet and kissing them, much like one disreputable woman once did to Jesus’ feet. A the time of Jesus, it could still have the literal meaning, but more often it simply implied giving some action showing that you accept the proposition, strings attached. Isn’t it interesting that the same word could mean such different things? Well, maybe they are not as different as we like to think they are.
Jesus’ reply is from Deut. 6:13. “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” Only. No attached strings are allowed, not even for a seemingly good cause. The ends do not justify the means.
Again I want to examine this temptation a little more. What was Jesus being offered? The chance to rule the world in love and peace, to make it right. And it is an outright gift. These lands and kingdoms will be 100% Jesus’ to rule!
There’s just one problem: Jesus won’t be Jesus anymore, the sinless, beloved, Son of God. I don’t even really know what this would have meant, except that in terms of the destructive force on the universe, it would have made Adam’s sin seem tiny in comparison. Satan, one of God’s creation, would have managed to destroy His creator. He would have won. It is incomprehensible. How would I summarize this second temptation? There are many ways to describe it. I like the following two words: Compromise and rationalize.
Every time we are tempted to bend the rules, just this time, to do something we shouldn’t for a good cause, such as provide for our family, we are experiencing a tiny, tiny version of Jesus’ temptation here. And there even more subtle ways we fall into this. What about willingly listening in to gossip at work so as to be seen as just one of the guys? What about turning a blind eye to something wrong a coworker does? What about obeying your boss in things that you call “grey” but you really know are wrong? Jesus understands. He has been there in a much, much, greater way.
Now, was Satan done? No way! Those were just warm-ups to the main event!
The devil led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Him until an opportune time. – Luke 4:9-13
Starving Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit, is led with the devil to Jersualem where he stood on a towering point on the Temple. Here Satan has an odd request: Throw Yourself down. And then he shows how clever he is by quoting some scripture himself: Psalm 91:11-12.
What is this temptation about? Satan is saying, “Look, man, you are Superman! Don’t you get it? You are God! You can do anything! The angels will follow you, even preventing your injury! Don’t you get it? You are in charge! Just take charge!”
This is a really striking thing coming from Satan, himself a fallen prince of angels. This is exactly what Satan had done to fall. He told God, “Look, old man, I’m Superangel! My angels love me and will follow me wherever I go, and whatever I do. They won’t let anything happen to me. You try to stop me and there will be war!” And in fact that is exactly what happened. There was a great war in heaven, and Satan and his following angels (one-third of all the angels) were cast out of heaven.
Satan is trying to turn Jesus into someone just like him. The temptation is to stop following your authority, to do what you want. After all, what He wants, is kind of stinky. Look Jesus, He just starved you for the last 40 days! And do you know what He is going to do to you later? Do you know why He sent you here? Do you want to do that? Jesus’ answer is short, biblical, and sweet: Do not put the Lord your God to the test (Deut. 6:16).
How big a temptation was this? It wasn’t really about throwing Himself down at all. It was about whether He would follow after Father God no matter how hard it became. Only 40 days ago, Jesus was being anointed by the Holy Spirit, being told by God the Father that He was loved. Now He is starving, being tormented by the most crafty, verbally powerful fallen angel in all creation. What kind of love is this? Can He endure more? Years of it? Can He even look at where this will go? To when God the Father who says He loves Him will forsake Him and allow Him to be tortured and crucified, put up on a cross on a hill? How tempting will it be then to throw Himself down so that His angels, His angels, will be sure to lift Him up and protect Him? This third temptation is really all about idolatry, choosing something (self) over God.
I believe that every temptation, ultimately, boils down to a kind of idolatry. We may not see it this way, but when we are tempted to sin, we are really being tempted to question God’s love. Of you, God says, You are my son (or daughter), whom I love! Follow Me! When we give in to our temptations to sin we are saying we would rather love ourselves and what we want more than we would love God.
Understand that Jesus went through this Himself! He sympathizes with us! We cannot possibly shock Him with either the depths of depravity of our temptations or of our weakness of faith. We cannot possibly make Him turn His back on us, if we call out to Him for help. As I said last week, we don’t first get our life together and then come to God; we simply admit to Him that our life is a mess! In faith, and it doesn’t take much faith – a mustard seed’s worth is enough – we come to Him ask Him to help us to turn our lives around. And He will do it!
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. – Hebrews 4:14-16
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