Daily Bible Reading 3rd May 2026 // Luke 4:1-13
1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were over, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”
9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to guard you’,
11 and
“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
All this has something very telling to teach us about the work of the kingdom God. The temptation to have 'trust in God' expresses itself in doing and of daring something unusual for God, something brilliant and spectacular, something that will cause a stir is often very real and it betrays fear rather than faith. It is an evidence of insecurity and uncertainty, rather than calm unshakeable trust in God. This is what is often at the root of much abortive activity in the work of the gospel. When will we learn that activity is not necessarily a sign of grace? The apostolic prescription for forward movement was 'We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word'. One would have thought that this was a sufficiently clear and unambiguous directive to follow without hesitation, but apparently not: any expedient is good enough as an excuse and a substitute for this calling, and the Church spares no pains to contract out of the down-to earth, hard grind and discipline that it would involve. It is not, of course, spectacular; it does not stir the emotions or titillate the palate; and so it is at a discount. And the Church then wonders why its multifarious activities are so abortive.