If Thou Be

At the Jordan, the Father spoke from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The very next scene, in the wilderness, the tempter’s first words were, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”

Notice the attack. It wasn’t on Jesus’s hunger first. It was on what the Father had just said. If. Prove it. He said it again on the pinnacle of the temple. And at the cross, people passing by threw the same words at him: “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

Jesus never answered by proving himself. He answered with Scripture: “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” And on the cross he answered by staying.

The enemy still works with “if.” If you are really forgiven. If God really loves you. Answer the way Jesus did: with what God has already said.