Tag Archives: temptation of Jesus

UNVEILING HOLY SPIRIT IN JESUS’S WILDERNESS TESTING. The Why of Father’s Power Unto Us

God the Father’s Adamant Intention to Strip satan Through the Last Adam

 

Jesus, then, FULL of Holy Spirit,” “immediately the Spirit
drives- Him -out into the wilderness” “to be tested by the
devil”, “and He-was in the wilderness … being tested by
satan”.          
          Luke 4:1a; Mark1:13a; Matthew 4:1b; Mk. 1:13

“And He-returned, Jesus, in the POWER of the Spirit … ”                                                                                                            Luke 4:14a

  There has been in my spirit from Father, since first writing this series, a pointing towards what is to come out in this Kairos.

.   I believe that what Father God is unveiling of His Spirit, specifically through Jesus at the very outset of the gospel to the world – from Jesus’s baptism and the then sudden, immediate, intentional leading out, by His Father’s own “from-out-of-Himself” Spirit now upon Him, into the wilderness explicitly to have this confrontation with, this testing by, satan, so as to unveil the truth of the power of Holy Spirit in the Man dead to sin and the flesh and the devil – is that which He wants to foundation in us.

God our Father, our Awesome God, is purposed in this towards us, Beloved, in order that we might really know this truth in our hearts, in the spirit of our minds.  It is to be a solid rock living truth in us, out of which is the Royal authority of King Jesus through us! 

.    For from this is the living testimony on earth, as it is in heaven, of the accomplishment of the single unity of Father God’s Holy Spirit in and through the Man Jesus, Christ Jesus our LORD/Lord, Who now sits with His Father on heaven’s Throne, in having defeated the kingdom of darkness, in having stripped those once rulers & authorities in the heavenlies, in having destroyed the works of the devil.

The finished work of the cross, to which Holy Spirit distinctly bears witness, has its ‘beginning-to-be-accomplished’ starting point at Jesus’s baptism.  The testimony of the finished work of the cross begins its mystery (to the devil and the world) victory right away in the wilderness confrontation, the place where the Hebrew children, delivered out of Egyptian slavery some1500 years earlier, had failed …

.   … all because of them not having died, as it were, in the waters of baptism through the Red Sea, and thus not being able to receive Holy Spirit (see I Cor. 10:1-6a; Deut. 5:27-29; Ps. 81:10-13)

I have been longing so much to get to the Acts 2 outpouring of Holy Spirit; I believe there is an unveiling of Holy Spirit & Fire baptism that we need to look at through fresh eyes.

.   Yet I see Father continuing to lay this foundation in our spiritual understanding, because all that is to be seen and thus received in fulness from the Acts 2 baptism/outpouring is in this unveiling of Holy Spirit revealed through what is Jesus’s baptism specifically – into water AND Holy Spirit.

As I have sought Father’s heart in this that He’d set to do adamantly through Jesus, and thus to unveil to us, He has continued to pour out more and more revelation and understanding from the scriptures.  I have been in continual awe and praise and more awe, of Father as our God AND Father, of Jesus in seeing Him like I never saw Him before, and of Holy Spirit – the One Spirit of God our Father AND Christ Jesus our Lord – in us, towards us, for us, intentionally through Jesus and then through the scriptures, which He has made sure we have.   I’m so in awe of our God, Beloved.

And as I have said in previous Kairos blogs, so again; this poured out way longer than was ever imagined or anticipated.  There has been a sense in my heart from Father not to rush getting this word out, for it would have been premature and come far short of all that He has wanted unveiled.  I believe this teaching, both this series in unveiling Holy Spirit, and especially this Kairos specifically, is important to Him towards us.

.   Let Father’s Holy Spirit speak and sink the truths unveiled here into your hearts, Beloved.

  Don’t be in a hurry to read through this.  Father wants this established in the Bride of Christ, in each individual heart.  Enjoy the feast.  Father went to great lengths, with great love for each one of you, to prepare through Jesus, the richness of this banquet

So here we go!

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God’s own Holy Spirit – the breath of His very Life, the words from of depths of His heart – this Promise poured out (Joel 2:28a; Is. 59:21; I Cor. 2:9-12), is made known through the revelation of Father’s working through His Son.  It is literally the revelation of God’s Word made flesh AND baptized into His very Spirit, into the anointing of the authoritative nature of Who He is, Holy, which also wholly unveils the fullness of the power of His Love overflowing (Jhn. 1:1-3; 3:34-35; 3:16; I Jhn. 4:8b & 16)

This is the reason why we call Jesus, Christ Jesus our LORD/Lord”, the reason why, from the wilderness forward, every demon kowtowed to the anointed Son of God – at the sight of Him, at the sound of His Voice, at the sound of His very Name (Mk. 1:21-27; Mat. 10:1-Lk.10:17) – as well as the root reason why believers were first called Christ-ians” by the world (Mat. 16:15-18;  Acts 11:27).

The “enduement/clothing of Power from on high”, witnessed in Jesus at His baptism by His Father, by God, (which IS the promise to believers), is a clothing into the power of Father God’s Name – “YHVH” – unveiled in large part, though not in the full revelation of Jesus, to Moses in glory and power, and by which authority Egypt and her gods were stripped (see Ex. 3:13-22; 6;2-8; 33:18-19; 34). 

.   This last statement needs to sink into your heart, Beloved.  For this is where the mystery, pertaining to this Kairos, is set in the Old Covenant, which will be unveiled in magnitude through “Jesus{“YHVH-SHUA -› Yeshua} from the cross on Golgatha’s hill (Col. 2:14-15; Phil. 2:8-11), but which unveiling begins in the wilderness confrontation.  This exact “pattern” was set by Father, by God, through Moses when he first went to face Pharaoh, in Exodus 5:1.

“And afterward Moses… came and said to Pharaoh,
“Thus says the LORD …”
[Lit. “THUS SAYS YHVH…” ]

It would be a continual confrontation with this Name, “YHVH”, through the one anointed to carry the authority of His presence in carrying His Name, which would begin to systematically destroy the works of Pharaoh, all that he represented, until the final, ultimate confrontation – the Passover, the sacrifice of a lamb – making the stripping of his authoritative hold of the people in bondage to slavery complete, that which was the Divine purpose started in Pharaoh’s throne room back in Exodus 5:1.

It is the Name, from of His own Name, which Father gave to His Son, so as to reflect exactly His Character image, even as Moses did not come to know (Ex.33:20a) in the fullness unveiled through Jesus (Mat. 1:20-21; Lk. 1:31-33; Jhn. 17:6a, 12a; Heb. 1-3; Jhn. 1:16-18)

.   It was in the Name of the Word of God made flesh, in the person of Jesus, Who was, in that emptied form, clothed as a Man into Holy Spirit, that is, into the Spirit of His Father, of God, thus living out of that authority of the Kingdom of God in all that He was doing, that people would realize and say that “God was in their midst”, or,  as Matthew would quote Isaiah, “Emmanuel.” (Mat.  1:21-23 – I.e. Lk. 7:11-17)

.   This specifically was because of Father baptizing Jesus into His Spirit, why He was known, from this point forward, as the “Messiah”, the “Christ”. 

Accordingly, for we who have believed into Christ Jesus, the enduement into Holy Spirit is a clothing, as it were, into the authority of the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ because of the victory – the fullness and totality of the victory – over all that the devil represents and has done to mankind, the victory of the finished work of Jesus’s cross.

.   That is, it is the voice of the Victory of the Blood of Christ Jesus our LORD/Lord, by His Spirit in and through us – Jesus’s life through to His final breath while nailed naked to that wood – ALL that He so fully accomplished in the stripping of satan, for us, of authority, right, and power over us (Col. 2:15; Eph. 1:19-22).

.   That victory robe of Holy Spirit, into which we’re sunk in Holy Spirit baptism, is a forced humiliation, as it were, of the devil, because of this grace-gift of authoritative royalty, exactly as it had been for Mordecai over Haman, in the book of Esther (you must read Esther 5:9-8:17 to understand the magnitude of this significance unto us).

“The Son of God appeared for this purpose,
that He might destroy the works of the devil. ”    
                                                                  1 John 3:8b (NASB)

All of this comes to be for us, Beloved, because of what Holy Spirit’s clothing of Jesus begins to immediately accomplish from His Jordan baptism forward through to His cross.

.  It is the working of God the Father Himself, by His Spirit through the Man who’d emptied Himself to become as one of us, that we begin to see the fullness of the Godhead working as One … from Jesus’s baptism, and Holy Spirit’s immediate thrusting of this ‘wholly dependant upon Holy Spirit’ Man into the wilderness unto a devil who’d striped the first Adam of his glory identity back in Eden  (Phil. 2:5b-11).

Father God’s adamant intention to strip satan through His Son is going to ultimately shock hell and unveil a Last Adam that the devil had no clue what God was setting him up for; (I Cor. 2:6-8;15:45-57).

There is a revelation of truth through this confrontation concerning Christ Jesus – God’s Word come to be flesh – that the translators of the Greek New Testament did not clearly see or understand of God’s Son, and thus why they translated a Greek word, in the account of this wilderness confrontation, (which will be unveiled in this blog), based upon natural understanding, according to flesh, instead of spiritual understanding of the nature of Jesus.

.    It is a revelation of literally the bloodline of Jesus, which actually changes the definition of that Greek word, unveiling it to its core, root meaning, so as to make known what Holy Spirit intended accomplished, and accordingly, to what He actually said through the gospel writers.

When I first heard this truth taught, there was sober Presence of “Holy” upon the congregation that was coming out in the pastor’s words, and with a sense of warning, as it were, by Father Himself, that the definition is not any less than the truth just unveiled.

.  It is my heart to bring this truth open in this Kairos.

It is, too, that from this we can better understand Jesus’s baptism into Holy Spirit.

.   For in this is seen and understood the root of what is and means ‘our life in Christ’, what it is to live in Christ and Christ in us.  This truth cuts off a fleshly reasoning for allowing the “excuse” of sin as a believer (Rom. 6;1-14; 8:2-16; I Pet. 1:3-25).

.   The breath of Jesus’s Spirit into us that is Holy, and the Father’s enduement of the breath of His Spirit, (this is ONE Holy Spirit, through the power of the resurrection) is literally the very life of Christ Jesus in which we live when we are born again from above and baptized into water and Holy Spirit (Gal. 2:20; Jhn. 14:12-20; Eph. 1:19-23; et al).

We have misunderstood both Holy Spirit baptism AND that which takes place in the wilderness in the devil’s attempt to trip up Jesus.  I believe the correction brought out will, in what is unveiled of Holy Spirit AND of Jesus, disseminate forever the confusion that has existed in the body of Christ pertaining to the difference of what is having the Spirit of Christ at New Birth (when you are born again) apart from what is Holy Spirit Baptism.

The breath of Holy Spirit breathed by Jesus into His disciples on the evening of the day He was raised from the dead (Jhn. 20:22) was intentionally different than was the breath of Father God which came in a sound like a rushing wind on the day of Pentecost (Lk. 24:49; Acts 2:1-4).

There has existed almost an offense in a number of those who are born again, within certain denominations, who do not believe that what took place in Acts 2 is still for today.  That is, they believe they are baptized in Holy Spirit when they are born again, yet do not hold fast to the what was a grace-truth of the early church pertaining to speaking in tongues or the I Corinthians 12 Gracings of Holy Spirit.  This all stems from a complete misunderstanding of what takes place in the totality of all that occurred at the Jordan, Jesus’s baptism into that river AND into Holy Spirit.  The offense should never have been, and it has robbed much of the church of an authority, for this life, of the power from the Throne that was wrought by Jesus for us now, in His sufferings of the cross and through His Resurrection and Ascension by our Awesome Father, to sit on the throne with Him Who is Almighty God our God.

To know the full grace-truth by Holy Spirit from the scriptures this that takes place into God’s Son at the Jordan will put to rest what should never have been a division within Jesus’s body on earth.

So let’s undo the misunderstanding, so as to make known Holy Spirit in truth, from this that was set as “The beginning of the Good News”, as Mark writes in the first words of his gospel.  From here we will unveil what is “Holy” in Who Jesus is, as He is led purposely into the wilderness, unto a testing by the adversary of man.  And so we will alas see of Holy Spirit in what was Father’s adamant intention to get accomplished by His Spirit through His Son.

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The Spirit of Christ In You in New Birth

         You in Holy Spirit in Holy Spirit Baptism

Our foundation is always in Jesus (I Cor. 3:11), as seen through the scriptures of the gospels; the rest of the New Testament understanding has its foundation through the gospels, through unveiling the Man Jesus.

“Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again (lit. also “born anew/born from above” ) he is NOT ABLE to SEE the kingdom of God.” ”                                                                             John 3:3 (Lit. frm  Grk text)

“Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water AND of Spirit, he is NOT ABLE to ENTER INTO the kingdom of God.” ”                          John 3:5 (Lit. frm Grk text)

  One argument by those who are born again, a number of whom do indeed get water baptized, but do not believe that what took place within those believers in Acts 2, nor what is taught by Paul in I Corinthians 12, is still a present grace-truth is because of those who are Spirit-filled, “Charismatics”, as they are labeled, asking the former if they have “received Holy Spirit” or “are baptized in Holy Spirit.”  The former, answering in the affirmative, use the scripture, correctly in its truth, from what Paul wrote in Romans 8:9b, “but if anyone does NOT have the Spirit of Christ, he does NOT belong to Him”.  And they know, in truth, that they indeed DO BELONG to Christ Jesus because of having been born-again.

The misunderstanding is in Holy Spirit’s dwelling within believers, which is the evidence of received righteousness and the LORD changing them, [“if any in Christ he is a new Creation; the old passed away.  Behold, the new has come to be” (II Cor. 5:17)], versus being sunk into Holy Spirit, as of which Jesus speaks, in Luke 24:49, right before His ascension, to those already having believed AND having received the Spirit of Christ from Him the day He was raised from the dead, in John 20:22.

Holy Spirit in you, and you in Holy Spirit, are different the same way as when you drink a glass of water and so the water is in you, versus you jumping into a lake and now you’re in the water.  The Spirit of Christ in you evidences death to the old man and the new nature of Christ Jesus alive in you.  Baptism in Holy Spirit is not about getting your nature dead to the old and alive to the new, rather about walking in, or ENTERING INTO, kingdom of God authority, exactly as did Jesus when He began to win for us, AFTER having been baptized in Holy Spirit, when Holy Spirit led Him out into the wilderness to be tested by the devil.

–  When Jesus was baptized into the waters of the Jordan, Beloved, it was completely different than was the baptism in that same river by every other fellow Jew who came to John.  They were repenting, confessing sin, in order to receive cleansing so as to make ready their hearts for the revelation of the Kingdom of God through Jesus (Mat. 3:1-3, 5-11a; Mk. 1:4-5).

Our water baptism is not the same.  Rather it is an identification with Jesus at the cross, a joining with Him unto death to sin-in-the-flesh, the death He died once for all (Romans 6).

Jesus’s baptism into that river was the public testimony that He was the offering sacrifice Lamb, by God, sent to take our sin and so take the judgment for our sin in order to cut off sin and resultant wrath, for us and as us.  Our water baptism, Beloved, is His water baptism … to the death of the cross.  We covered this in the previous Kairos.  His water baptism was the prophetic foretelling that the cross, the fulfillment of His baptism into the Jordan River, was to deal with the sin nature rooted all the way back to Adam. (Rom. 6; Lk. 12:50).

–IIn contrast, when Jesus was baptized in Holy Spirit, this had absolutely nothing to do with needing or receiving a change to His nature in the flesh, because He had no sin in Him; He never did sin, He never knew sin (I Jhn. 3:5b; I Pet. 2:22; II Cor. 5:21a).

While it is so that we’ve heard this truth before, we have not understood the significance of it, and thus we have carelessly, though unintentionally, believed something of Jesus in the wilderness confrontation with satan that is entirely wrong.  The reason He was baptized in Holy Spirit is the very reason we must be baptized in Holy Spirit.  For it was the present living outflow of Kingdom of God rule, literally of Father as GOD, Almighty God.  Accordingly, for us it is the nature of the Enthroned With God Savior & Lord, King Jesus.  It is the very life of Jesus, Christ Jesus from heaven’s Throne, through His present body on earth (Eph. 1:13,20-23; Col. 3:1,3), exactly as we see Him throughout the gospels.

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Correcting the Misunderstanding of Jesus’s Testing

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be ___________ by the devil.”                                                                Matthew 4:1 (NASB)

  Paul, in Romans 8:3, describes exactly how God sent His Son to earth in order to take away sin in us.  Three other New Testament books confirm this truth about Jesus.  It established the integrity of “Holy” within this Man Who’d emptied Himself to live wholly dependent upon His Father’s Word, His Father’s Spirit in Him.  This truth does NOT take away, whatsoever, Jesus’s heart of compassion to be touched with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15).  Rather, completely opposite, seeing this truth ought to put your heart into greater awe of Him, of our Savior, in accomplishing for us the completely impossible (with man) task of taking away sin … in order to make US holy!

…   exactly as He is!

So let’s unpack this truth and unveil the hidden glory of God the Father’s weighty estimation of His Son, a glory that is Father’s purposed destiny for each one of us in Christ (Rom. 4:25-5:2).  This has everything to do with Holy Spirit in us and us in Holy Spirit, or as Paul would quote in Romans 8, what it is to walk according to the Spirit.  The hidden weightiness in Jesus would become manifest through the victory of the cross and resurrection, that prophetic decree of Jesus’s baptism into the Jordan and the resultant first failure of the devil in the wilderness immediately afterwards.

“For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the LIKENESS of sinful flesh (flesh of sin), and as an offering for sin,  He condemned sin in the flesh.                                                                                                                                                   Romans 8:3 (NASB)  

Jesus did not come to be “in sinful flesh”, rather “in the LIKENESS of sinful flesh”.  Jesus, for the reason Paul writes in Romans 8:3, could not, therefore, be born of the bloodline of the first Adam (Rom. 5:12,19a).  Hence the reason for the virgin birth (Is. 7:14; Mat. 1:23), through the decree, by the angel, of God the Father’s Holy Spirit anointed word believed, by Mary (Lk. 1:26-38; Mat. 1:18, 20).

Look again at the verse above.  The Law was weak through the flesh  … of EVERYONE born into the bloodline of Adam.  This is because of a Law greater in working power, through the bloodline of  the first Adam, called the Law of Sin (Rom. 7:23; 8:2b)This “Law” DID NOT EXIST in Jesus!

Why is it so imperative that we understand all of this?

James answers this question, pertaining to what was to take place with Jesus after Holy Spirit thrust Him out into the wilderness for that confrontation with the devil.

“Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God CANNOT be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.

But EACH ONE IS TEMPTED when he is carried away and ENTICED BY HIS OWN LUST, ”                                                                                                                James 1:13-14 (NASB)

  There was never one single moment, in Jesus’s emptied state as a son of man (through Mary), and thus so much more in His ‘utterly-dependent-upon-&-wholly-only-alive-to-His-Father’s-Spirit-in-Him’ state, when He ever had sin in the flesh whereby He could possibly be carried away and enticed by lust … because it wasn’t even in Him!

This was completely impossible, Beloved.  Jesus was not of the bloodline of the first Adam.  His bloodline lineage is straight back to God alone.  The bloodline of a baby is through the father, not the mother.  Accordingly, Jesus had no lust to ever have sin in the flesh to even possibly manifest or bear fruit … EVEN IN THE WEAKNESS OF HIS FLESH AFTER 40 DAYS OF FASTING.

This does not imply that He wasn’t touched with our weaknesses; for He had completely emptied Himself, not regarding equality with God His Father a thing be grasped as a man.  Knowing Jesus had indeed emptied Himself when He came to earth, this unveils how completely utterly dependent He lived by the fullness of Holy Spirit Who’d just descended and stayed.  You must see the safety net, as it were, in this, Precious One, the security from Father through His Son for you (Jhn. 16:33; 14:30b; Heb. 4:15; 2:18).  Jesus lived literally out of the truth of His Father’s words to Him as to His loved Sonship identity.  I’m in awe of Jesus my Savior.

Jesus was not, in the wilderness, nor later (Lk.4:13; Jhn. 12:27-28; Jhn 14:30; Lk. 22:52-53) in the brutality poured out upon Him  – by hell or by man, or even by our sin imputed to Him upon the cross and the Divine judgement received – through the entire ordeal from Gethesemane to Golgatha, ever tempted that He could fall into sin, that He could get selfish and do His own will so as not accomplish the will of His Father in the cost He had to pay for our redemption, where we could lose the only hope by God for eternal life (Jhn.  8:28-29).  If this was even a remote possibility, John the Baptist could never have declared that Jesus was “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world” (Jhn. 1:29).

The testimony of this truth, from the outset at Jesus’s baptism – into the waters of the Jordan AND into His Father’s Holy Spirit –  is evident at the beginning of His baptism unto the cross itself.

“Then Jesus came  … to a place called Gethsemane … And He went  … and fell on His face and prayed, saying,  “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me;  yet not as I will, but as You will. “And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became as drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.”                                                                            excrpt frm Matthew 26:36-39 & Luke 22:44 (NASB)

Look at the declaration of the scriptures concerning the nature of Jesus.

“and you know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and  IN  HIM  there  is  NO  sin.”                                                                                                                                                   I John 3:5 (NASB)

” … God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself … He made Him  who  KNEW  NO  sin                                                                                                          II Corinthians 5:19a, 21a (NASB)

   This, Beloved, is the very testimony of the bloodline of Jesus.  What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, was the testimony of the bloodline of the first Adam.  Yet Jesus, in His flesh, by the living Holy Spirit in Him, fulfilled the Law, every jot and tittle (Mat. 5:17-18).  The demanded requirement of the Law WAS fulfilled completely through Jesus’s life, for the Law of ‘Sin in the flesh’ DID NOT EXIST in Him!

“Temptation” was never an issue in Jesus.  It may have been in the thoughts of the devil, that this is what he was going to do to Jesus.  However, it just was not “temptation” in Jesus.

However, “testing” was ALWAYS being thrown at Him, whether directly by the devil or through man (ie. Mk. 12:13ff).  satan did not understand or know this aspect – the truth of the Blood, of the bloodline – of Jesus.             [Selah!]

 —satan’s goal was to somehow forever thwart the decree of YHVH, of God, spoken to him back in the Garden, in Genesis 3:15.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.  HE SHALL BRUISE YOU ON THE HEAD,  and you shall bruise Him on the heel.”

This Man, carrying, in His Name, the Name of His Father, “YHVH”,  was the last Adam come to fulfill that decree.  THIS Adam came to, in unashamed nakedness, from a tree on a hill called “Golgatha – the place of “The Skull” (Jhn. 19:17-18) – bruise the head and strip the serpent, exactly as he had, from a tree, caused the first Adam to be stripped in shamed nakedness.

This is the forever decree of the voice of the Blood and of Holy Spirit inside of those having believed into Jesus, especially witnessed to when we take communion.  Our victory over sin comes out of this truth, Beloved.  It is the bedrock of our foundation of faith.

The Voice of this authority, the very power of Golgatha’s victory, witnessed first hand by Holy Spirit, is in Holy Spirit baptism.

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Unveiling Jesus’s “Testing” –

So then, what do we do with what we read in the first three gospels, where it says Jesus was led out into the wilderness “to be tempted” ?

We will look at a quote exactly, from one gospel, the translation of the particular word as it is in the first three gospels, then show what Holy Spirit was actually saying through the gospel writers from the Greek word they used.  Please do not at all read this as a slam against the translators, for it is not!  The misunderstanding is completely understandable, because the Greek word carries both definitions, which will be shown here.

_ What differentiates how the word ought to be translated here is literally in the character of the bloodline.  Pay attention to the definition in its core root, and you will clearly see what Holy Spirit is describing, pertaining to why He’d thrust Jesus out into the wilderness.

There is a precious gem for Jesus through the rest of His life, before the cross, as a result of what takes place in the wilderness.  It is also a precious gem for you, Dear One, if you glean the truth from Him for yourself.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”                                                                                                                       Matthew 4:1 (NASB)

=-Of the many translations I checked, I found only three which have this translated with another word.

Then Jesus was sent by the Spirit into the waste land to be tested by the Evil One”            (The Bible In Basic English)

There is a fundamental difference between being tempted and being tested.  We saw above from James that Father has given us an exact description as to what it is to be tempted.  His description does not allow for Jesus to be set into this category, this word.  So let’s mine this word in order to see its root understanding.

The Greek word used in the gospels and in James for the verb, “to tempt/to test”, is “πειράζωpeiradzo”.

From Biblehub’s own words, here is the definition described: “peirázō (from 3984 /peíra, “test, trial”) – “originally TO TEST, TO TRY which was its usual meaning in the ancient Greek and in the LXX” (WP, 1, 30).  “The word means either test or tempt” (WP, 1, 348). Context alone determines which sense is intended, or if both apply simultaneously. ” (Emphasis mine).

This is what Thayer says: “2. to try, to make trial of, test; … for the purpose of ascertaining his quality, “

What Father God was doing through His Son was to begin to unveil to the spirits of darkness, through the testing by their leader, the quality, the proof, the authority of God’s weighty glory – of His Love –  through His Son, through a Man, a son of man, yet not of the bloodline of the first Adam.  (Even as I’m writing this, Holy Spirit is causing me to see what I’ve never seen before, and I’m in awe of Jesus).

On the Sunday I first heard this truth several years ago from the pastor at church service, this is how he described the “test”, the “proving” of the quality.  He said it was like taking gold and giving it to someone, telling him the gold was pure, 24K gold.  The receiver, not believing the gift is pure gold, wanting to know for sure, takes a portion and tests it, through fire.  Seeing that no scum rises to the surface in the testing, the gold is proven, through the test, to be exactly as the giver declared.

This is what Holy Spirit was doing when, the very first thing He does, having just clothed this Man, the Son of God, in the fullness of God the Father’s declared loved Sonship AND pure choice sacrifice (as brought out in the previous Kairos), He thrusts, by intentional leading, Jesus out into the wilderness to be tested, by the devil specifically.

satan had no idea this was God’s intent (I Cor. 2:6-8); for him this is his hour to bring out what he believes will be the ultimate “temptation” to trip up Jesus, to get Jesus the “glory” he thinks He’s after, (and to again steal another son of God’s (Lk. 3:38b) glory).  But this is not at all even in Jesus’s blood, will, or thinking.  Glory was already in Him and now on Him because of the Dove having landed and abided, because of Holy Spirit having clothed Him, though the devil can’t see it, in the robe of His Father’s weighty estimation of him (Jhn. 1:14)(I’m telling you, Beloved, there is a security and safety net for you in this revelation of Jesus our Savior.  Let this truth sink into your heart.  Some of you need to really hear this – John 16:33).

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The Clothing of Holy Spirit – the Weightiness of God’s Glory

The weighty Glory of God’s Love, Beloved, IS the authority and power, literally, on and in Jesus, to overcome sin, the world, and the devil …  from this lonely wilderness testing all the way to the cross, to the death of the cross.

We covered, in the previous Kairos, how Jesus, speaking through David, in Ps. 40:7 & Heb. 10:7, came to do God’s will (Ref. also Jhn. 5:19, 30; 6:38).  That will of God is to unveil to mankind His Love, the revealed and full truth of His very nature (I Jhn. 4:8,10, 16).

God’s nature of Love is described in detail in I Corinthians 13.  There are four, among the list unveiling what is Love, that show why Jesus could go through what water baptism was pointing to, all the way through the sufferings of the cross.  It is in this that we see why Holy Spirit, through Jesus, begins His destruction of the devil’s works, that is, why satan begins to lose in the wilderness what he had always won in man since the garden.

  1. LoveDOES NOT SEEK IT OWN
  2.                    BEARS  ALL THINGS
  3.            –   ENDURES ALL THINGS
  4.          LOVE NEVER FAILS.”—-      —-

Jesus, in receiving Holy Spirit, in being sunk into the Spirit of God, is being endued into the fullness – the authority and consequential  out-flowing power – of Father’s love for Him!

“and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a Voice came out of heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased.” ”                                                                                                       Luke 3:22 (NASB)

It is this weighty authority that “bleeds”, if you will, in the testing of Jesus out in the wilderness so as to overcome the devil.  (When we see the core root of the verb “to Test“, you will understand to where this “test” is leading, which will unveil literally the depth of God’s love for YOU!).

 —Jesus’s whole life, all the way to His last breath on the cross, is lived from out of this fullness.  It is this that pours out of Him throughout His life of service, in every word, in every deed, in every miracle, this Love of Father God for Him.  This is what Holy Spirit baptism was for Jesus, and is for us.

This is the “clothing” of Jesus when the Dove landed and stayed upon Him.  Jesus NEVER sought His own will, but only that of His Father.  This is why He could bear all things and endure all things, from the wilderness testing in the weakness of having fasted forty days, and even through the sufferings of scourging and the being nailed to a cross to hang for six hours while taking our sin and then our judgment and wrath.

This love that Believes all things, hopes all things, that does not take into account a wrong suffered, is why Jesus could pray, from the cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do”, and have absolutely no animosity according to the flesh, towards His fellow Jews who’d cried for His crucifixion, towards the religious leadership who’d pushed for it, towards the Romans standing there who’d nailed Him to that cross (Lk. 23:34; I Pet. 2:21-24).

This understanding, then, takes us to the very root of the verb, “To Test” – “peiradzo”.

Per Strong’s Concordance, the core root is from an obsolete derivative of the verb “peiroπειρω“, meaning, “to pierce”.   Do you see to where this is all leading?

“But He was pierced through for OUR transgressions …”                                                                  Isaiah 53:5a (NASB)

The “piercing through” of Jesus on the cross unveiled to the world the spotless blood of the sacrifice of this Lamb of God.  It revealed the bloodline, the very victory – of the blood – of the Man that could not be tripped up, could not be caused to sin, because in Him there was no sin, no enticement of flesh to lust after saving His own flesh … entirely rooted confidently in the secure, beyond human comprehension, love of Father, Almighty God. 

Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels say that Jesus was led out to be tested by “the devil”, and Mark says, “by satan”.  Both labels bear witness to his working.  The word, “devil” is from a compound of two words, which together mean, “one who throws through, as of one throwing a spear through another.  The other label, “satan” is of Hebrew origin, from a verb meaning, “to be or act as adversary”, rooted in a primitive verb meaning, “to attack, (figuratively) to accuse”.  Together, both labels reveal that his intention is “to attack, then throw through by accusation.”  His intention is literally to pierce us by accusation, where we are ashamed to stand “naked” before a Holy God.

THIS IS WHY I LOVE JESUS!  This is why I love Father God as my Heavenly Father AND as my God.  He provided, nay, He sacrificed His only begotten Son, to bear our shame, the accusations against us, the piercing we deserved, in the face of the devil, of satan himself, and before the world.  The intention of satan in the wilderness he thought he finally accomplished in Jesus on the cross.  The ruler of this world, in his “finest hour”, had nothing, absolutely nothing, in this ‘totally dependent upon His Father’s Holy Spirit in Him’ Man (Jhn. 12:27; 14:30; Lk.22:53).

The piercing he could not do in the wilderness was done on Golgatha’s hill.  BUT IT WAS HIS DOWNFALL!!!  Because Jesus wasn’t bearing His own sin, for He had none.  Jesus was pierced through for our transgressions.  This is the unconditional love of such a God towards us!  … For in this is the revelation, through Holy Spirit Who was given to us who have believed into Christ Jesus, of this love, and of the hope of the glory which the first Adam, our first forefather according to the flesh, so recklessly forfeited.  (Rom.  5:5; 1 Jhn. 4:9-10; Rev. 1:5-6).

This is the power of Holy Spirit baptism, for us, in us!  It is an exposure, the cross, to satan, a crushing of his head, that a Man, utterly dead to sin, upon whom RESTED/Clothed the Holy Spirit of God, could and did pass the testing he, the devil, had been doing since the wilderness experiment some three years earlier.

It was an exposure, too, of just how great a love for us has God our Father.  It unveils the depths and length of just how far He would go,  through a Man, by His own “from out of Himself” Holy Spirit, to be so directly involved in our redemption.  The very life of Jesus, by the Clothing/Enduement of Holy Spirit, reveals OUR glory identity, not for the age to come, but rather more, from the moment we believe into Christ Jesus.

  satan’s full stripping began in the wilderness, but was fully exposed by Jesus as Jesus hung naked on that cross (Col. 2:14-15).  Jesus could completely trust His Father, even the very nature of His Father’s unfailing love, to literally commit His Spirit to Him and breathe His last breath, knowing confidently His Father was not going to abandon His soul to Hades nor His flesh to decay, but that He WAS indeed going to raise Him from out of among the dead (Acts. 2:25-32).  This abandoned confidence in His Father’s love for Him is why God could, through His Son, confidently, adamantly go after stripping satan,

===…  FOR US!

Are you listening, Beloved?

… Selah …

Though he did not know it yet, when Jesus was baptized into His Father’s Holy Spirit as He was coming up out of the Jordan, satan lost.

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The Wilderness Testing.  The Authority of the Breath of Holy Spirit and the Word.

“Now it came about when all the people were baptized, that Jesus was also baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased.”  And Jesus, FULL of Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led about by the Holy Spirit in the wilderness for forty days; and when they had ended, He became hungry.  And the devil said to Him,  “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”  And Jesus answered himIt is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone’ ‘but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ “ ”                                                                                                                            Luke 3:21-22,4:1-4, Mat. 4:4 (NASB)

LookLook specifically at the emboldened words as though one sentence.  The authoritative force of God, the power of God’s Kingdom in Jesus, because of having been sunk into Holy Spirit enduement, is revealed in seeing this.

And Jesus,  FULL of Holy Spirit,  … answered him (the devil) “It is written, … “

Jesus was not just confessing scriptures that He could bring up in His memory.  He had grown up learning the scriptures, even though He was the Word of God in flesh.  He had also very much been in living relationship with His Father: this was evidenced earlier on in His life, as seen in Luke 2:42-56, and it would be witnessed to throughout His ministry years, as we see in Mark 1:35 & Luke 5:16.  Jesus was now living out of having been baptized into Holy Spirit, and it was now His Father’s Spirit in Him, to Whom He was giving ear, Who was bringing up in Him, was causing Him to recall, specific verses as a living sword in and through His heart and lips (Jhn. 12:49; Eph. 6:17b; Heb. 4:12).  Indeed, the Deuteronomy 8:3 verse, which He decreed in answer to the first test by satan, became, by the power from of Holy Spirit baptism, the very signature of His life throughout the rest of the gospels, indeed, was the very signet ring of His Father, OF GOD, upon His finger ( “if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” – Lk. 11:20, ref. also Esth. 8:2,8ff)

–“Let these words sink into your Spirit, Precious One: Jesus was not fighting the devil through His own strength or effort of mind through verses He’d memorized.  He was wholly leaning on Holy Spirit, His Father’s Spirit in Him.  All that cultivation of relationship, as a man, with God His Father in the Word, in the Tanakh, our Old Testament, was now fully enclothed by Holy Spirit, Who could bring up in Jesus the exact scripture that was that sharp sword needed for the test satan was throwing at Him.  (II Tim. 3:14-17; Heb. 4:12)

This is set before our eyes, Beloved, through the Scriptures, not to tear us down for not having lived as such as believers, rather towards the hope by Holy Spirit in us unto Christ-like transformation, that is, where we are graced through believing, in cultivated living relationship with our LORD, in private time with Him in the scriptures and prayer, to become now exactly as we see of Him in the gospels, yet even now more because of  His resurrection and ascension to the throne (II Cor. 3:17-18; Rom. 8:28-30; I Jhn. 4:16-18a; Heb. 10:19-22a).

Every scripture reference spoken by Jesus towards the devil, as it would be throughout His ministry, with crowds or with individuals, was by Holy Spirit in Him, bringing to His remembrance for the specific moment, and here in the wilderness as with every test all the way to the cross, towards the specific test being used by satan in his attempt to trip Him up. (Jhn. 8:26,28,38a; 14:26; 16:13).  The “testings” always unveiled the “proof of the pure gold”, not the falling because of satan’s hoped-for temptation of flesh.  Almighty God, Jesus’s Father, began in the wilderness, and would continuously, through Jesus, meticulously demolish the devil’s millennial hold over man.

Seeing this, then, look again, in Matthew 4 & Luke 4, at the full account.  Keep in mind through the whole reading that Jesus is rested –  completely dependant upon Holy Spirit in Him and He in Holy Spirit – in the clothing/enduement of Holy Spirit baptism.  Remember, too, that Jesus did not get baptized into Holy Spirit because this would help Him in transforming His nature; HE NEEDED NO NATURE TRANSFORMATION!  This was entirely about Kingdom establishment/enforcement through Holy Spirit, through the Power of Holy Spirit.

Look at the result of the victory of Father’s adamant intention through the Man, through Jesus, His Son, immediately at the end of this beginning stripping of satan.

“And Jesus returned … in the POWER  of the Spirit; “

THIS was and is and always will be, Beloved, the Promise of Father for us, this robe of His Kingdom Royalty, to enforce through us the humiliation of the devil because of the totality of Jesus’s life towards this end, towards this purpose, from the Jordan to Golgatha.  

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FINALLY

The “TELESTAI”/ “FINISHED” final and loud decree by Jesus from the cross, shortly before breathing His last breath, the confirmation of Father’s adamant intention accomplished, this result of the complete stripping of satan, ultimately set into this age a new bloodline.  It is the destiny by God for man, through His Holy Spirit, the glory of the nature of what is Holy Love, in the New Creation in Christ Jesus, the “Last Adam”, His very own Son.

“For since by a man (“Adam” in the Hebrew of Gen. 1:26) came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. … So also it is written,  “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.”  The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”                                                                                                                                                            I Corinthians 15:21-22, 45 (NASB)

“For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.  Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”                                                                                                                 II Corinthinans 5`14-17 (NASB)

It is a new bloodline, in the blood of Christ from upon Heaven’s Mercy Seat, in the very power of the blood and Holy Spirit (Heb. 9:14), in those having been born again, born anew, born from above, and baptized into water AND Holy Spirit (Jhn 3:3,5; I Jhn. 5:8).  It is a Spirit empowered life – Holy Spirit in them and them in Holy Spirit (Jhn. 14:16-17, 20, 23 17:20-21), Christ in us and us in Christ – which, henceforth, does not at all allow again an enslavment to “Sin”, or to its lord, ever, because of the cost of redemption, in the spilling of this precious blood, to break off the power and authority that were the chains of that slavery (Rom. 7:24-8:2; Col. 1:13-14; I Pet. 1:13-23; I Jhn. 3:1-9; 5:4-5), rather lives out of the victory of Jesus’s Cross, from the Throne, to reign as one with Him in progressive, increasing Kingdom of God rule, so as to glorify Christ Jesus our LORD/Lord, our Savior, our King. (Is. 9:6-7; 53:10-54:5; Dan. 2:35, 44).

It is literally the glory of the revelation, advanced through Jesus’s body on earth, of the totality of what all means Jesus’s baptism, into the Jordan river AND into His Father’s Holy Spirit.  Because it is the manifestation of Father’s adamant intention accomplished in having stripped satan through His Son’s sacrifice to the cross.  It is the confirmation of Holy Spirit baptism, literally, upon His Son, an unchanging Grace-truth from an unchanging God and Father, Who’s heart is  towards kingdom transformation, of individuals of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, for whom Jesus spilled His blood (Rev. 5:9-10; 7:9).

“And the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”  And He said to them, “I was watching satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall injure you.”                                                                                                                                                       Luke 10:17-20 (NASB)

“For in Him (Christ) all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.  And in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;”                                                                                                                       Colossians 2:9-10 (NASB)

Father sent Jesus out into the wilderness to boast through His Son, to initiate the dismantling destructive force of “HOLY”, or, received/believed “BELOVED SONSHIP”,  against the devil.   Because in the root of “HOLY” was and is this truth, THE MOST POWERFUL power of the truth of Father God’s character/nature, that of LOVE, poured out without measure, through His descending onto and into Spirit, as a Dove, upon  His Son.  The force of this identity, of Loved Sonship, by God, by Father God, settled onto and into Jesus, in Who He was as the Word of God in the flesh.

This is the fruit, Beloved, of Jesus’s Holy Spirit baptism, from Father onto Him, and so, accordingly from our LORD Jesus onto US.

Do you understand now, Beloved, what was being set by Father as the power of this Grace-truth for us?

One more thought;

The Gem!

This is where the life of Holy Spirit Baptism lives alive and grows.  It was in the wilderness where FULL of the Holy Spirit” (Lk. 4:1a) came to be, out of it, POWER of the Holy Spirit” (Lk. 4:14a).  The victory  of Father’s Words to Jesus at the Jordan became precious fruit to Jesus out in the wilderness.  Jesus, too, would have known that the entire Tanakh, literally every Word of YHVH to Moses, which bore the mystery of the Gospel, of HIM, came to be in Moses’s relationship and continual pursuit of the LORD’S voice out in the wilderness.  It was likewise in the wilderness, yet very, very much in the presence of the LORD – of YHVH – Himself, that Joshua learned the LORD’s voice, His Word (Ex. 33:11).  I do not believe it is mere coincidence that Mark and Luke record this one “habit” of Jesus from this time forward.  Mark mentions this early, (Mk. 1:35), but Luke shows that it was “life” for Jesus.

“But He Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.”                                                      Luke 5:16 (NASB)

NASB inserted the word “often” because the grammar in the Greek verb implies this.  He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!

You are so greatly loved, Beloved.

Mark D.

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** – Beloved, you are free to print this and any Kairos for your own study.  Take the time to go through these scriptures, and let the Holy Spirit write them and bear witness to them in your hearts and minds.  Let the Word of God and the Blood of Jesus and the witness of the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you wash through you and renew your mind.  These blogs are meant to be Bible studies, so you are free to print up any newsletter of this blog site for your own study.  Feel free to copy and reset these Newsletter with lines in them for notes.

If you have never believed into Jesus Christ, you can do so now, from your own heart and words.  If you wish help to pray, pray, “LORD Jesus, I believe You died for me and as me because You love me.  I receive Your Forgiveness for my sin.  Thank You for shedding Your blood to cleanse me, for making me clean, for breaking the power of sin in my life, for transforming me as a gift of Your Grace to me.  I ask You to live inside of me.  I thank You, Jesus, for giving me eternal life, that I might know You and Your Father, as my God, forever.  In Your Name, LORD Jesus.  Amen!”

For those of you who have believed into Jesus; take communion often (I Cor. 11:23-26; Lk. 24:30-31a).  Let communion be a refreshing of the Blood and the Spirit (Heb. 9:14) to cleanse your conscious from sin consciousness to righteousness consciousness, that you are indeed clean, as a gift of His grace.  You are no more, Dearly Beloved, under condemnation; rather, you are under justification – eternally! (Rom. 4:25b, 5:21;b; Heb. 9:11-12).  You will find the Holy Spirit of Jesus unveiling Jesus to you from the scriptures like you’ve never seen Him before.

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kairos – (Kahee-ros’) – Strong’s concordance defines this word: “an occasion, I.e. set or proper  time.”  The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible (NASB) defines this word; “season, time, but not merely as a succession of moments, which is chronos,” [from which we derive the English word ‘chronology’].  “Kairos, however, implies not the convenience of the season, but the necessity of the task at hand, whether the time provides a good, convenient opportunity or not.”  This must be understood.  Strategic times of the Lord do not necessarily imply good or convenient times.  We are in Kairos times.  Maybe not good or convenient times, but definitely strategic, opportune times because of the season we are in.  We must have “ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches,” (Rev. 2:29), so as to respond correctly to the Kairos time.

* Some Scripture for this letter is taken from the (NASB) – NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, (c) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by The  Lockman Foundation.  Used by permission.  Other references translated from Grk. Txt as presented in T. Newberry’s Englishman’s Greek New Testament, Zondervan Publishing – 1982- originally published in London, Eng. 1877                                                                                                                                                           Scripture references not showing a Translation in Brackets are this writer’s translation from the Hebrew Massoretic Text as it appears on the web-site “qbible.com”.  Some definitions given to Hebrew words are also referenced from this website, as well as from Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, Baker Book House Company, (C) 1979

Several Translations and study guides to which this author refers are taken from biblehub.com website

Joseph Henry Thayer’s  Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Zondervan Publishing House – 1979 – Zondervan Corp. Grand Rapids , MI 49506