Using the Bible

Matthew 3:16 – When Jesus was baptized by his cousin John in the river, Heaven opened and the Spirit of God came down on Him. The Holy Spirit then did something that He loves to do after He baptizes someone: He drove Jesus out into the wilderness.

In the place of lack and pain and threats of more, Jesus encountered misery and exile. He began to suffer the things through which He learned obedience. Finally, He heard the voice that His first man Adam and his partner Eve had heard much earlier, because in this place, as a man, He encountered the thief and the deceiver.

Jesus was prepared. Adam and his Eve were not.

Because He knows each person’s calling or destiny in the Kingdom of Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows what preparation is required for a human to stand in the place where the God Who breathed out worlds and stars calls him or her. He is perfectly aware of which weaknesses are present, and which strengths are missing, and He is a genius at preparing educational and transformational experiences that are perfectly capable of producing the exact changes that are needed for each person.

Because Jesus trusted Yahweh to be protecting and preparing Him, and because He had no thoughts that His Father might intend to harm Him, His journey through the Place of Preparation took 40 days. It was a place of victory and of anointing for purpose. Contrast this with the journey through the Place of Preparation the descendants of Israel experienced, which took 40 years, and was only a successful experience for 2 men out of millions of men and women.

Jesus was prepared partly by His knowledge of what God had said. When He was confronted with deception and with temptation to fail, He knew Yahweh’s character and intentions. He overcame His enemy in the Place of Preparation by quoting God properly. He had been with the Father from eternity, so He knew every word that had been spoken. He knew every thought. His successful method of overcoming evil would have been available to every descendant of Israel, though. It was written.

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