Just the Right Word

Our text for today is  Matthew 4:1–4.

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.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Did you ever wish you had just the right word to say at just the right time.? Of course, we have all been there. As Solomon said, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” It is a beautiful and valuable thing to have.

In today’s text we will see that Jesus had the right word. He knew just what to say to overcome temptation. He could heal the sick and raise the dead because he was God. Having just that right word of Scripture at just the right time, I think is different. He had just the right word because he had put Scriptures into his heart. 

We often long for more information about Jesus as a child, but we do know that as a Jewish child, he grew up being instructed in the Old Testament. 

This was God’s command for all Godly Jewish parents (See Deuteronomy 6:6-9). I cannot imagine that God would call two parents to raise his child who would ignore this.

More evidence of this is the fact that when he was 12 and lost in Jerusalem, he went to the temple. In fact, when Mary and Joseph hunted him elsewhere, he asked them, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”  (Luke 2:49).

Because of this kind of upbringing, when Jesus was confronted with temptation by the Devil, he had the Word of God in his heart to answer the devil’s twisting of the Scripture. He had just the right word at just the right time.

We need to let that be a lesson for us on how to have the right word.

Lonnie Davis