INTRODUCTION
Have you ever read Victore E. Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning? If not, I would highly encourage you to read it sometime… Put it on your reading list. During World War II, Dr. Frankl shares with the reader what it was like to be imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz, where he was stripped of his possessions, his clothing, his dignity, and even his profession – his identity as a medical doctor as he was forced in a dehumanizing manner to work as a prison laborer. His father, mother, brother, and wife all died in the concentration camps. All his notes, which represented his life’s work, were destroyed. Frankl recalls, “We all said to each other in camp that there could be no happiness which could compensate for all we had suffered. We were not hoping for happiness – it was not that which gave us courage and gave us meaning to our suffering, our sacrifices and our dying.” Yet Frankl emerged from Auschwitz believing that “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their pieces of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Chuck Swindoll is credited as saying, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”
No doubt, any one of us may have questions about our attitudes if our identity is constantly called into question. “Are your really qualified?” “Are you really good enough for this job or position?” “What if God doesn’t like or love me…then what?” “Was I really called to this?” “Am I really a Child of God?” Planting seeds of doubt is the work of “the slanderer,” “the devil.”
HISTORICAL SETTING
As we continue our Lenten series, we are confronted in Luke’s Gospel with Jesus being led to the wilderness to be tested or tempted by the devil (the adversary, the slanderer, the accuser) Note how the testing begins in verses 3 and 9 “If you are the Son of God.” A thorough reading of the Gospels and we would conclude that Jesus is, indeed, the Son of God or ultimate Israel and the rightful king of Israel. The temptation is really to bait Jesus into questioning His identity, not too unlike what we find with Eve in Genesis 3[1]. I can’t help but to wonder, if this is not how most temptations begin, by questioning our identity as children of the living God and our standing with God. It is within these heated moments of temptations perhaps we question, “Who am I?” Whose am I? “What’s wrong with me?” “Am I missing out?”
Temptation – for the entire human race, for the people of Israel, and for each of us personally – starts with a question of identity, moves to confusion of the desires, and ultimately heads to a contest of futures. In short, there’s a reason you want what you want. Temptation is embryonic, personality specific, and purpose directed…The first step in the cycle of temptation is the question of your identity. James (James 1.9-10) understood that temptation begins with an illusion about the self – a skewed vision of who you are. The satanic powers don’t care if you illusion is one of personal grandiosity or of self-loathing, as long as you see your current circumstance, rather than the gospel, as the eternal statement of who you are.[2]
GO DEEP Luke 4.3, 9 and Luke 3.22[3]
“If you are the Son of God,”
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Satan tempts Jesus to doubt His identity, “If you are the Son of God….”
THINK ABOUT THIS
Throughout my life and career, I have witnessed how people are overlooked, and unappreciated. It is as if they don’t matter. There is a story of a young woman working in a ministry who once felt overlooked and underappreciated. She was found often watching others gain recognition, and status which then pressured her to feel the need to prove herself—to do more, say more, be more visible.
One evening, having read Luke 4, she paused at the words, “If you are…” and realized how often that whisper echoed in her own heart. She sensed the Holy Spirit reminding her: “You do not have to prove what I have already declared.” From that day forward, her service flowed less from insecurity and more from confidence in being God’s beloved child. The temptation to perform lost its grip when identity was anchored.
The enemy’s strategy has not changed. He still attacks identity before behavior. But the Father’s declaration still stands. You do not have to prove your worth. You do not have to perform for approval. You do not have to turn stones into bread. Live from the truth of what God has already spoken into your life:
You are a child of God (John 1.12)
You are free and have been set free (John 8.31-32, 36; Galatians 5.1)
You are a friend of Christ (John 15.15)
You are justified or “put right” or “made right” (Romans 5.1)
You are united with Christ and One with Him in spirit (1 Corinthians 6.17)
You have been bought with a price; Therefore, you belong to God (1 Corinthians 6.20)
You are a member of Christ’s body (1 Corinthians 12.27)
You are a saint – a holy one – ἅγιος/ hagios- (Ephesians 1.1)
You have been adopted as God’s child (Ephesians 1.5)
You have direct access to God through the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2.18)
You have been redeemed and forgiven of all your sins (Colossians 1.14)
You are complete[4] in Christ (Colossians 2.10)
Why not chose to believe in God’s goodness for you? That He loves you and that you are his beloved child? Attack life with the right attitude – you belong to God and God is good!
Prayer: Father, when doubt whispers “if,” remind us of who we are in You. Guard our hearts against the need to prove ourselves. Root us in Your Word and strengthen us to trust You in every wilderness season. Amen.
[1] Eve may very well have thought, “Does God love me”? “Is He holding out on me”? “Whom am I that He would care?” What the accuser or slanderer does is to have Eve question God’s good Character as well as undermine her identity in relationship with God. For me – this has been the tactic of the evil one down through the ages – to have us question the good character of God. “Is God good?” “Is God holding out on me?” “Does God really care for me, and does He really love me?” At the heart of all this is trusting in God’s good character.
[2] Russell D. Moore, Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway,2011), 28.
[3] The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The reason for my use of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages is (1) for you to be familiar with the original languages and be a better student of God’s Word, (2) for you to have a deeper love for the richness of Scripture and to help in your understanding or interpretation of Scripture and (3) to help you better defend our great Faith. Biblical languages give you added contextual understanding that can be used to push back more effectively on false ideas and embrace truth.
[4] Greek πεπληρωμένοι (peplērōmenoi) Perfect Passive Participle of πληρόω /plēroō = complete, “made full,” or “filled to the top,” “filled to the brim” in Christ). The perfect tense indicates a completed action with ongoing results. In Christ, believers already possess a spiritual completeness. “In Christ you have been brought to fullness” (NIV); “You also are complete through your union with Christ” (NLT); “you have been filled in him” (ESV).