As Christians, we still face temptation, but we face temptation in Christ. Having been baptized into Christ, we have been plunged into the life and existence of Jesus, which is now lived out through us. Therefore, when tempted, we aren’t put in a position where God is counting on us to come through in victory on His behalf. Instead, because of “Christ in us,” we are counting on God to come through in victory on our behalf. Every temptation we will ever face was met in Christ victoriously in His incarnational life, and at the cross, the defeated fallen false self we would become at our own birth was gathered up in Jesus and crucified and buried. On Easter morning, we were included in the resurrection of Christ, and in union with His resurrected life, He now, through us, one temptation at a time, reveals Himself as the Overcomer, manifesting the victory He has already won over everything we will ever face. Lent is a time when we not only remember the forty days of temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness, but we are reminded that mystically we were there in Him, for he had clothed Himself in our fallen humanity. Jesus told his disciples in John 16:33, “In this world have tribulation (trials, tests, temptation), but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
During this Lenten season, be reminded that the Christ who overcame in the most intense kind of spiritual warfare during His forty days in the wilderness has already faced anything that you are walking through in your wilderness battle, and just as He overcame the world then, He is prepared to once again demonstrate His overcoming power one step at a time, one temptation at a time, in and through you now. Lent is not a season where we identify with His wilderness; it is the season where we identify and participate in His victory in the wilderness.