Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God

This morning's quote is from Luke 4:4. Jesus had been fasting for forty days, and then afterwards he was hungry (verse 2). Forty days is the time la healthy person can go without food without damaging their body. For much of the time during such a fast,  the appetite is suppressed, but then at the end, hunger comes "afterwards He was hungry." Most of us don't know hunger, but Jesus did, and Satan came to tempt Him saying “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” (verse 2). The temptation here, is first and foremost to cause Jesus to doubt His identity, to doubt what God had told Him about who He is. In particular, immediately after His baptism, a voice had come from heaven saying, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased” (3:22). And Satan was inviting Jesus to question both His identity, and what God had said. There is much to say about identity, but we will save that for another time.

There are two words in Greek that are both translated “word” in English.  The first is logos, and for our purposes we can think of it as the objective word. Jesus tells us that God's Logos (the Bible) is truth, objective truth (John 17:17). The other word is rhama, it is the spoken word, the living word, it is the prophetic word. We have all had the experience of reading the Bible and a verse or passage standing out to us in some way. This is a Logos word becoming a rhama word as the Holy Spirit breathes on it. These days in writing this blog, for example, I am asking for a rhama word from the daily logos readings. In fact there were two such words that stood out to me this morning.  The other one was Luke 4:18 which is Jesus speaking His destiny to heal the broken hearted and set the captives free.  

My first inclination was to blog on the latter, since my heart is very much for the inner healing He promised in this verse. But in an early morning prayer meeting on line, a sister said something that pointed me to the first verse. This too was a rhama word. It was the phrase “look up, not down.” It had come through several independent sources in the last couple of days. And this was a rhama word of confirmation, a prophetic word, and a relevant word at this difficult time of the invasion of the caronavirus.

Father, I want to thank You again this morning for the earlier prophetic word from Chuck Pierce. The word was that there would be a plague like invasion that would test us through Passover,  and that we are not to look down at what we are about to go through, but that we should look up.  And if we keep our eyes looking us, we will make it through. Chuck then lead us in a prayer/declaration “Lord keep us looking up, and the snakes ahead will have no head.” Thank You Lord that You have given us authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and that this plague will not harm us (Luke 10:19). Thank You Lord that this is just one of the "every rhama words," that You are giving us to day to live by in Jesus Name Amen