Read a scripture and sing worship songs.

• (Optional) Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. He wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator also between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all. (Philippians 2:11b; 

  ¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
      to the glory of God the Father.

   1 Timothy 2:4-6a). 

  ⁴ who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.⁵ For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,⁶ who gave himself as a ransom for all people. 

Choose a way to cast vision for who they can become in Christ or what God can do through them by:

• a scripture that reminds them of the Father’s Heart and of the end vision.
• reflecting on the changes in their life since they started following Christ
• reminding them of what God wants to do through them

Our vision is: “A church for every village and community, and the gospel for every person.”

Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness

¹ Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,² where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

³ The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

⁴ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

⁵ The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.⁶ And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.⁷ If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

⁸ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

⁹ The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.¹⁰ For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you carefully;
¹¹ they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

¹² Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

¹³ When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

Read More

• Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan himself. After 40 days of temptations of every kind, the enemy comes again to Jesus. Jesus is now weak, tired and very, very hungry. Satan’s temptation was a direct attack on the truth of God’s words. This has been Satan’s strategy from the beginning when he used it with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3). 

  ¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

  ² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

  ⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

  ⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

  ⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

  ¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

  ¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

  ¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

  ¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

  The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

  ¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

  “Cursed are you above all livestock
      and all wild animals!
  You will crawl on your belly
      and you will eat dust
      all the days of your life.
  ¹⁵ And I will put enmity
      between you and the woman,
      and between your offspring and hers;
  he will crush your head,
      and you will strike his heel.”

  ¹⁶ To the woman he said,

  “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
      with painful labor you will give birth to children.
  Your desire will be for your husband,
      and he will rule over you.”

  ¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

  “Cursed is the ground because of you;
      through painful toil you will eat food from it
      all the days of your life.
  ¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
      and you will eat the plants of the field.
  ¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
      you will eat your food
  until you return to the ground,
      since from it you were taken;
  for dust you are
      and to dust you will return.”

  ²⁰ Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

  ²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.²² And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”²³ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

  Jesus models to us how to quote God’s promises to deal with attacks of the enemy.