Day 1 God Felt Hunger

Jesus felt real hunger after forty days of fasting, and that truth removes our favorite excuse that God cannot relate to human weakness. We talk about how we numb discomfort with distractions and how to use those moments to build real dependence on the Father. 
• Matthew 4:2 and the reality of Jesus’ hunger 
• Why “he’s God” can become an excuse to avoid obedience 
• How physical and mental exhaustion exposes our coping habits 
• The distraction loop of phones, food, and constant input 
• Letting discomfort push us toward prayer instead of escape 
Find one comfort today and skip it.

Transcript

Welcome And The Week’s Verse

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Hey, it's Pastor Josh, and welcome back to Field Notes, a five-day devotion. This week we are looking at Matthew chapter 4, verse 2, which says this, and after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. So this week we're looking at if God felt hunger, then what is your excuse? Because it's easy. Like when we step outside, when we go into the woods or we're on the water, no matter what we're doing, you feel it, right? You feel the heat, you feel the cold. When you're hungry, you feel the hunger, you feel the distractions, you feel the stresses and all of the pressures of the day, and it wears on us. Matthew 4 says, Jesus was led into the wilderness, fasted for 40 days, and was hungry. See, it's easy to read that and think, yeah, but he's God. He has this unfair advantage. Jesus isn't just a human, he is also God, so it must not have hurt him in the same way it would hurt us. But God doesn't hunger. Think about that. Mankind hungers, but Jesus, being fully man and fully God, felt that physical, gnawing emptiness so that he could fully step into our reality. He wasn't just playing a part, he was actually living it. See, when we hit a wall of physical or mental exhaustion, our first instinct is to find a quick distraction to numb it. We're not actually dealing with it. We we tune it out and we reach for our phones or we reach for food or we reach for whatever it is that fills that hole that we are digging in our heart. Jesus used that empty, depleted feeling to drive him to the Father. Jesus realized that human strength is never going to be enough. Think about it. Even at a red light today, see if you can catch yourself in that 30 seconds to a minute not picking up your phone and trying to distract yourself. See, we have a problem with that. We can't be bored. We constantly need input. And the more inputs we use, the more input we're going to need. But when we're running on empty, what do you do with it? Do you reach for an escape or do you let the discomfort push you towards the complete dependence on God with how we see Jesus doing it? So our action step today is going to be fairly straightforward. Find one comfort today and skip it. Whether it's a meal or a snack, or if it's just your endless scrolling on your phone, whatever it is, when you feel that urge to pick up the phone, when you feel that hunger when you're walking towards the kitchen, use it as a physical reminder to pray and ask the Father for the strength that you don't have. That's going to do it for today. We can't wait to see you tomorrow to see the God who weeps.