When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues,and everyone praised him. (Luke 4:13-15), NIV)
I’ve read this passage many times. This morning for the first time “in the power of the Spirit” stood out. I realized that not even Jesus could pursue his mission with power until he was filled with the Spirit. Jesus’ path to this supreme power was baptism, isolation, fasting, and rejection of the power, glitter and glory the world had to offer.
I need the power of the Spirit to accomplish my mission. I have been baptized. I have spent a day or so at a time isolated without speaking. I have spent days in fasting from time to time. I don’t feel particularly bound to a lust for power, glitter, and glory. Even so, my Spirit walk falls far, far below the example of Jesus. I am surely not walking in the needed power. What next? What’s a husband and father to do? I barely have the time to write this, and that only because the family is still asleep.
(http://differentparent.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/third-temptation-of-christ.jpg?w=334&h=187)
