Immediately the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested. So we see that one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to lead us. Testing of people is something that God periodically does. He tested Abraham when He told him to go and sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22). He tested the Israelites when He led them through the desert for forty years (Deut 8:1-5). Jesus passed the test on man's behalf. We are now to live in His victory and we too can overcome temptation.
Verse 2 must be something of an understatement! Many of us get hungry if we miss a single meal!
The first temptation was to turn the stones into bread. Now two of Jesus' most famous miracles are the feeding of the 5000 and of the 4000, where in a sense He did turn stones into bread. So what is the difference? Why refuse now, why do a similar miracle later? First, the devil was telling Jesus to prove that He was the Son of God. There was no need for such proof, His Father had spoken to Him. Then there is the devil trying to out his agenda onto the Messiah. Saying something like "OK, you are the Son of God, then use your sonship like this". We must never let the world or the devil (who is the prince of this world, John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11) put its agenda onto us. The world is constantly telling the church, "this is what you should be doing".
We are to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is a quote from Deuteronomy 8:3. This is how we are to live. We need to rely on the word of God much more than we do, we are to make it the foundation of our lives. It is the word of God that gives life to us.
When Jesus fed the 5000 He did things differently than the devil was trying to get Him to do here. He thanked God for the food they had, and then let God multiply it. An attitude of thanks and trust is a good one to have.
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