Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.
Hebrews 2:18
In my ongoing battle with food, I have noticed two major weapons in my arsenal: flight and fight. Much of what I do to prevent disordered and decadent eating can be conceived of as “flight”. This encompasses all of the planning and preparation and self-talk and everything that helps me to keep far, far away from food temptations. It is why I weigh and measure what I eat. It’s also why I don’t eat at buffet restaurants. When facing an unassailable foe, turning and running is often the better option. This is about survival. We run so we can fight another day.
The trouble is that we know that the enemy will show himself again and again. He is waiting for an opportune time to attack. For some food skirmishes, running is not enough. Running does not make us stronger to do battle. And who wants to spend their whole life running anyway? Sometimes we need to stand and fight. We need to put our foot down and say “no” to the bully who wants to have his way with us. But what do I mean by that in a food context? I am talking about learning to stare your cravings and impulses in the eye and declare: “You are not in charge!” Truly, nothing in life feels better than taking a stand against our own flesh and winning. Let’s consider the stand Jesus took against food temptation and see how we might gain access to the aid promised in Hebrews.
Jesus was tempted by food (and suffered)
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, “If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Matthew 4:1-4
I find it fascinating and very telling that Satan used food to try to cause Jesus to sin. I mean, it worked against Adam and Eve, right? In fact, as I have spoken about before, the first sin was actually a dietary infraction! The Tempter loves to go after our flesh and used that same play out of his book of tricks with Jesus. Satan knows that if he can convince our flesh to sing to us we might just listen. The Bible says that Jesus was “tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). This means he was tempted by every fleshly desire you can imagine, just like us. The difference is that he never sinned even once by giving in to his flesh. This makes him supremely qualified to be our guide out of temptation.
I believe that (like us) Jesus actually suffered when the devil waived the idea of bread in his face. Hebrews also says, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting for God, for whom and through whom all things exist, to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). Yet in this suffering lies the key to freedom. Perhaps this is the battle that must be fought. We must be willing to face the suffering that comes from not having what we want. When we talk about fleeing versus standing and fighting, what comes to mind for me is a willingness to accept strong feelings of desire without quenching those desires. Temptation is a desire for something that we know will “miss the mark”.
Jesus was able to accept this suffering. This, in turn, made him perfect for the Father to use as the centrepiece of his eternal rescue mission. “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him…” (Hebrews 5:8-9). Through suffering, Jesus learned to align his will with that of the Father. This is what obedience really is, isn’t it? And Jesus was epically obedient; we witness his battle with the flesh in the Garden of Gethsemane as he struggles to obey his Father by sacrificing himself on the cross. Do not minimize this. Jesus was truly tempted. If you don’t believe me, go and read Luke 22 for yourself. In verse 44 it says, “And in His anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground“. Jesus was suffering as he wrestled with the choice of saving his flesh versus giving it up in obedience to the Father.
So what does all of this have to do with resisting the doughnut bin at Safeway or the box of cookies in the “kid cupboard”? I think that it has everything to do with it. It means that God can make use of whatever is tempting us for his divine purpose. Perfection through suffering is not for Jesus alone; we too can be perfected through the same suffering. We have been given access to the same form of divine refinement. Keep reading through Hebrews. Jesus meant that we do this suffering thing together as a family with him. And look at how the author of Hebrews provides us with a way forward:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that 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 4:15-16
He says that because Jesus has suffered from earthly temptation just like us, he is completely qualified to sympathize with us- he truly gets it. And because he gets it he doesn’t judge us but instead provides us with grace and mercy. We need to see that “our time of need” is the moment of food temptation. It is the place where we stand at a crossroads between sin and obedience. This is therefore a completely legitimate time for us to approach the throne of grace as we agonize through difficult emotions.
There is much more to say about this and I promise to cover it greater detail. For now, please know that God wants to be your go-to in painful times of need, even if that time of need seems trivial, like when being tempted by food. With God’s help and in the footsteps of Jesus we can stand up to the Tempter and win.