Luke 4

Dear Life Group,

I hope you all are doing well as the holidays are approaching in a few days. Covenant also finished off the year with a Christmas party, which was a great time of fellowship and reflecting on all that God has done in 2012. As much as I felt like I was on survival mode most of this year, looking back there are truly many evidences of God's loving care during my toughest moments. I am so thankful that we have a God who came to this earth to relate with the struggles and pain we go through. My passage for today was on Luke 4 where Jesus is first tempted in the wilderness. Three times, Satan tries to get Jesus to do what he wants but Jesus fights Satan off each of those times by quoting Scripture. Satan has never appeared to me in person like in this passage, but I sure do hear voices in my head that tell me things like "Do you really think God can do XYZ?", which leads me to hopelessness and despair. From this passage, I am learning that it is really important to use Scripture as a tool to fight off Satan's attacks. Because my 2 year old son always tries to distract me when I am reading the Bible, I have tried to find creative ways to saturate my soul with the word of God. Some tactics have included listening to the 'Praise Baby Collection' and taking glances at my scripture memory cards while playing with my son. :) I can easily tell that I didn't get my dose of God's word for the day/week, when I find myself getting irritated and having a bad attitude towards those around me. As Jesus says "Man shall not live on bread alone", it is my prayer that we will see God's word as our daily sustenance, something we cannot live without.