not by bread alone

Matthew 4:1-4 (ESV)
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. [2] And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. [3] And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." [4] But he answered, "It is written,

" 'Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.' "
This happens right after the Spirit descends upon Jesus as a dove at his baptism. The Spirit leads Jesus to the desert where he fasts for forty days and nights. Forty days and forty nights invokes a few memorable events of the Old Testament, not the least the time it took to give Morses the Ten Commandments, Elijah’s journey to Mt. Horeb, the rain of the flood that lasted for forty days and forty nights, And then Israel spent 40 years in the desert.
After forty days, he was hungry. Seems to be an understatement. I think we should remember that Jesus is a man, as much as he is God. He here is living as one of us, he eats, drinks, sleeps, etc. just like all men. So the tempter’s temptation is a real temptation. So often the tendency is to think that Jesus isn’t being tempted at all, because he is God. But know, he is hungry, he is tempted. And he won’t use his divine powers to serve himself! This is the amazing thing about Jesus. He doesn’t use these powers in a self serving way, but only out of love and service for others. Sure Jesus could have easily made stones into loaves of bread, and it is hard for us to see what would have been wrong with it if he did.
But it is the temptation of the devil, and he doesn’t do things absent mindedly. Later Jesus will feed people by the thousands with his miracles. But at this time he refuses to feed even himself, and simply says man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
These days, most don’t believe that. Most believe that a man can get along quite well without the word of God, but on bread alone. Perhaps in this life you can. But then in actual fact there is no life, no true life without the word of God. It is through his word that he makes us alive, gives us faith, gives us eternal life in him, life we now live in service not to us, but to our neighbor, just as Jesus lived his life. It is a life we simply live, and in that life we serve others our spouse, our parents, our children, our country, our world. And we do this, because it is no longer us who live, but Christ who lives in us.