the church as Christ

A wrong turn

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

I think Christianity took a wrong turn, and much farther back than you might think I’m going to say. I think it took a wrong turn when it became a religion instead of a way of life.

After three years of abstaining from scripture, I’m going back a little at a time to see if what is imprinted on my memory and mind and soul is accurate, reliable, valuable.

I’m trying to divorce it from what I’ve been taught it says and told it means and drilled about its characteristics. I’m trying to just read it.

I’m starting with the gospels. And there I find nothing about Jesus expressing a desire to begin a new religion, but rather to fulfill an old one. I find no pleas from Him to build structures and governances and hierarchies and rules about what to do and how. I find no support for worship or rituals or traditions that lose meaning through repetition because they may be periodically spoken or sung but not LIVED.

Instead I find prophecy about how the old ends and the new begins. I find stories about accepting and rejecting grace; about accepting and rejecting others; about accepting and rejecting Him. I find teaching about how to live, how to be fulfilled, how to show grace and love and compassion for others. All interspersed with His example of living and doing these things as well as teaching them.

I find medicine for broken relationships.

I find promises of His presence.

I find guarantees of His grace.

In fact, the words of judgment that I find are for the religious, the ones who judge, the ones who reject, the ones who make it hard for others to access grace. The ones who are in bed with government they do not trust and will conspire to take His life because it is politically expedient — and will justify their judgment and conspiracy and lies and murder.

What I remember of the story after that is that it goes all right for a while. The story of His life and teachings is told far and wide, and people gather to hear it and keep gathering to reinforce their belief in a life that’s good and noble and gracious — even to the point of ultimate self-sacrifice. A perfect example of it.

The people who originally told the story chose the wise and most caring to shepherd the rest and moved on to tell the story in other places.

But, people remain people. Just like we do. Even if changed in heart and soul, it’s never complete. Gatherings became churches; synagogues with rules about who’s in and who’s out, who’s in charge, what does this mean or can’t mean, what worship includes and doesn’t, and so on and on.

And the letters we read from the people who originally told the story to the people-having-problems-with-being-people keep pointing them back to the “how-to-live” teachings of Jesus, though they sometimes stray into making new rules.

I think it’s natural and human that another religion resulted from the teachings and example about how to live. I’m pretty sure Jesus saw it coming. I understand that a lot of people benefit from the fellowship of shared belief with others; are uplifted and encouraged with worship together; are strengthened by messages that urge them on and reinforce their faith. Some folks need the ritual and the repetition. Church has its place in faith.

Probably in most religions, not just Christianity.

But if the focus is on self — even on the community of faith that one’s self is surrounded with — rather than living that story, that grace, that Jesus … then it truly is just another religion. Perhaps His name is there, but … His presence?

It’s the way of life that gives meaning to the religion.

Christianity can’t just be another religion, and still be Christianity.

It has to be a way of life.

His life.

Freedom to choose

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

What so many of my fellow Christians fail to understand is that freedom of religion and the separation of church from state in a democracy is the ideal environment for faith to grow.

Because our faith is based on choice.

Always has been. Always will be.

From the choice of fruit in Eden to “choose you this day whom you will serve” to the great and mudane daily choices we make to try and reflect the nature of Christ, it has been our freedom to choose that’s the key.

Not coercion. Not enforcement. Not Sharia-type law.

A choice that’s forced is no choice at all. It doesn’t create a change of heart, or compel a desire to live graciously, or inspire a devotion to truth or justice or kindness or respect.

And the attitude that Christians are somehow morally superior to make these choices for others through law or compulsion — simply because we’ve have been forgiven — is ludicrous on its face. No one should have that attitude because none of us has that moral authority.

Were we asleep when we read or were taught that we are not to judge, or do we just choose to ignore it in a consistently defiant way?

And how effective is that kind of arrogance in trying to attract people while we say we are imitating Christ? Surely that hypocrisy is transparent to the most casual observer!

Did we miss the fact that scripture teaches God gave law to a new and undisciplined nation emerging in a savage and primitive environment — but it wasn’t good enough long-term to draw people closer to His nature, so grace had to be brought by His own Son? How difficult is that to understand? Law can only do so much! It was the schoolmaster until the Master arrived.

We believers have inched away from who He is and what He taught until we are nearly as far away, savage and primitive as the early era of law was from its inevitable Successor.

I’m no preacher and not even qualified to play one on TV — but these truths ought to be taught and preached and insisted upon until they are so obvious that it’s an embarrassment to deny or ignore them.

Choice, not coercion.

Faith, not force.

Compassion, not control.

Grace, not governing.

Love. Not law.

Your neighbor. Yourself. Your enemies.

No exceptions. No excuses.

If we want others to live changed lives, we need to live lives that are changed, exemplary, gracious, forgiving, generous, lovely.

You can’t make that a law.

It has to be chosen.

And maybe we need to be looking into the faces and hearts and lives of people around us who don’t believe, but live that kind of life, and we need to see Jesus there instead of in the mirror and we need to ask ourselves why.

Your religion

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

I guess you can keep on making your religion unattractive if you want to, by forcing your morality on others through law and government — rather than feeding the hungry, helping the poor, seeking justice for all, fighting for everyone’s rights and lives and health and well-being. Hey, it’s your religion, and if you want to turn people away in disgust instead of welcoming them in, I guess that’s up to you.

In the meantime, there will be a lot of us pointing out that Jesus of Nazareth never said we should judge or hate others, ignore or insult or disfranchise them; take away their voices or their votes; or that any person or group of people was better — or more loved by God — than anyone else.

He did say we should love our neighbors as ourselves; do good to those who use us in spite; to show mercy; to control our anger and our urges to say “You fool!”; to seek reconciliation; to give to the one who asks; to love our enemies; to stop worrying about food, clothing and self; and to not judge others — except in the way we would want to be judged.

And He even said that not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord” would really be a follower of His; but rather those who do the right thing.

That’s what He said, and how He lived, and since I find that very attractive, that’s the way I want to live. You can make up your own religion, and call it what you will, but if it doesn’t do the right thing, then it’s just your religion and it’s never going to be more attractive than your own heart.

Hey, I don’t make the rules. That’s just the way it is with people and religion and the way we live and stuff.

‘Lost’ and ‘Saved’

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

Honestly, I don’t think folks are as interested in being “saved” as they are in having a significant, purposeful life.

I think if we Christians were living significant, purposeful lives that were winsome and loving, we’d have something to talk about without ever resorting to words that hold no meaning or attraction.

“Saved” is a church term that means little or nothing to someone who doesn’t believe, especially if they don’t have a church background.

It may have meant a lot to those using the term in Acts 2 — who were familiar with God’s wrath and prophecy; who felt guilty because they were complicit in the murder of the Messiah — but it doesn’t particularly hold weight today.

I think it would take a long time to set up as a meaningful term, or at least one with which people would identify.

They are already wary of the idea of a wrathful God who judges and damns nearly everyone He made and claims to love; wary of that love that seems conditional upon a litany of specific responses, but no seeming emphasis on continuing to grow better, stop judging others, accept others, forgive others, love more deeply, help others, be generous, etc. It’s not what they see in us.

And “Lost” has long felt like an insult to me. An assessment. A judgment. The very thing we’re specifically told not to do.

It’s a term that sounds like it comes from a place of superiority, even if not earned (or actual!). It’s an instant turn-off.

And “saved” is the flip side of that coin. What does “saved” mean to someone who’s been termed “lost?”

Does “saved”
mean being in the position of moral authority to judge others to be “lost?”

How attractive.

Knowledge and Belief

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

I’m never going to discourage study, but you can still believe what’s written in scripture about love, holiness and the nature of God without deeply understanding everything written or implied there.

Once again, here’s my example from John 21: Peter and the ”other disciple” (apparently how John humbly refers to himself) enter the empty tomb and believe Jesus is risen EVEN THOUGH they don’t understand the idea of resurrection described in prophecy and predicted by Jesus.

They didn’t get it.

They believed anyway.

And I keep saying this because of the danger of getting so deeply invested in human interpretations and conclusions drawn from what’s written that we start judging others’ faith and arrogantly call them heretics and exclude them and further divide the body unified by His Spirit.

And I know too well the defense mechanism that says, “Well, there are certain basic principles that we have to all agree on ….”

No.

That way lies judgment, wallbuilding and madness.

Peter didn’t agree with Jesus’ plan to go to Jerusalem and allow Himself to be killed and to rise again. That’s a pretty basic disagreement. But it’s on the foundation of faith like Peter’s that Jesus builds.

Disagree, but don’t divide.

Dialogue.

And don’t forget that, in speaking of Jews and Gentiles, of strong and weak faith, the author of Romans recommends:

“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” (15:7)

Do you think the people being written to believed everything exactly alike, according to some magically unwritten standard of orthodoxy? What are the odds of that happening? Then? Now? Ever?

You know what we believers can believe and agree on?

What is clearly written in scripture. What Jesus taught. How He lived. Whom He loved. (Hint: Everyone.) That He died. That He lives again.

And if that isn’t enough to give weight to the cosmic importance of loving others as the basis of everything we do — as opposed to judging and hating and condemning — then what would it take to convince us beyond God has already done?

We’re not on this world to sate our greed, to judge and hate others, to divide and destroy.

You don’t even have to study or believe scripture to understand that.

Sermons

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

They seem to be the centerpiece of the worship service at church, no matter how long they are or what they’re called: sermons, teachings, messages, homilies.

I’m not sure they should be, but they kind of are by default for almost a couple thousand years now.

I would vote for the eucharist, the Lord’s supper, to take that honor and let Him host and be the center of worship, honor and praise.

But, hey, nobody asked me.

So we surround the sermon with all our other acts of worship (singing, prayers, reading of scripture, etc.), and — like I said — it becomes the centerpiece of the table we surround by default.

And what do we hear?

I attended church from before the time I could think or speak until just a couple of years ago. I think I can fairly say I’ve heard about every kind of sermon imaginable, from the very best to the very worst.

I learned a lot, I’m sure; and some of what I learned, I had to later unlearn — because what I heard was not valid, or helpful, or sometimes just wasn’t true. Occasionally it didn’t even conform to what scripture said, and even rarely contradicted and defied it.

But looking back, I think the very best sermons I heard gave me insight into the life, teachings, example and nature of Jesus of Nazareth.

They conveyed His humanity and divinity, His winsome appeal, His unflagging love for all, and His refusal to judge people while being unflinchingly judgmental about how to speak, act and relate to others in a world that God made and God cares about and God watches over all the time.

Sermons like that made me crave that nature and yearn for that living grace; they challenged me to imitate it in what I do and say with the goal of making it my nature.

I genuinely don’t know how you can preach a gospel sermon without talking about Jesus; He is the very best of all the good news in scripture. I tried preaching for several years, but it is not my gift. When I did preach, I genuinely tried to draw my listeners to the grace of Christ.

To the cross, yes, sometimes; even to the empty tomb. But, you see, that’s what the Lord’s table is for; that’s largely His story to tell in His inimitable way — by living it to death and then living it forever.

I can’t do better than that.

And you see, if that were all there is to His story, we would miss out on the part that makes it whole and full and complete: the incredible life of love and compassion that He lived. That, as much as anything else, is what proves He was/is/will always be the Son of God.

God could have raised anyone from the dead — it’s not like He’d never done it before! But who else but His very own Son could have lived such an exemplary life, seen and communicated the loving grace of heaven so clearly, had the unalterable faith to let mankind do its worst and still speak words of forgiveness?

Sermons come and go. A million every Sunday, maybe, all around the world.

But they are only heard by the people who listen to them; and if those people don’t leave that church inspired to live what they’ve heard, then only words have been spoken. Not The Word, the living Logos, the meaning of what God spoke into existence, the why of being, the purpose of living, the joy of loving, the embodiment of grace.

Well, I’ve rattled on here long enough. If I could live like that, I could still try preaching. But I know there is no credibility in what you say if you don’t practice what you preach.

So I’ve chosen to leave that to others of better qualifications, and just do my best to live up to some poor semblance of the One that I most admire.

They say that’s a sermon too.

Sometimes I’m Sad

/ W. Keith Brenton / 5 Comments

… that I can’t be the kind of Christian everyone expects. You know?

The kind with a contemporary Christian hymn in their hearts all the time. The kind who is always eager to tell someone about Jesus at the first excuse. The kind who goes to church faithfully, every time the door is open. The kind who gives generously every week he attends. The kind that can vote a certain way with no qualms in their conscience. The kind who believe God is in control of every minute detail all the time because He chooses to be. The kind whose kids turn out the way everyone expected them to. The kind who doesn’t question the traditions. The kind who gets along.

But that’s just not me. Some of those things were never me; I just didn’t make a big deal about them.

The fact is, I can’t be that kind of Christian. And I won’t pretend.

I’d rather be genuinely me than someone who says and does what must be done to fit in.

The contemporary Christian hymns — frankly, all the songs sung at church — are not the comfort they once were. They remind me of my departed Angi, who loved them and had them in her heart all the time and listened to them in the car and on her iPhone in the office. And that just raises difficult questions for me about God’s goodness that nobody actually has answers for, so it makes the faith and the trust in Him that I still have even more difficult.

My eagerness to share a gospel message is not what it was. For one thing, people find it off-putting and self-righteous and often not credible from people who can’t live up to it, and I am one of those far-from-perfect people. I’ll be glad to tell anyone who asks about the reason for the hope that lies within me (to put it in scriptural language), but most of the time it’s all I can do to try to be like Jesus of Nazareth. I used to preach. Now it’s just a matter of practice. In this case, practice won’t make perfect. He has to do that. I get that. I grasp the concept of grace, even if I can’t fathom the depths of it.

And I haven’t been to church but a couple of times in the past two years and more. I have questions and concerns about what church is and should be and how it’s done and what its purpose and expectations are that far exceed the word count of a readable post.

Giving to support some of those things I’m not sure I can believe in … well, that’s just not an option right now. I can give to support people I know who are in genuine need; I can give in other ways in total anonymity; I can give to the kinds of things that Jesus of Nazareth talks about giving to support. Did you ever notice He never once talked about giving to His church in scripture?

Frankly, I am horrified at the political tack that churches have taken to support a particular party and even economic/social ideology that I often find antithetical to the life that He lived and the way He loved and the extent to which He gave … even to His own life. For people who never earned it, never worked for it, never could, never will.

Because I can’t believe God shows favoritism, to rich or poor, one skin color over another, one ethnicity over another, one set of life choices over another, one religion over another, one soul over another. If He loves the whole world, then the Son He gave is for everyone. But God as micro-manager? Undoing everything in some karmic cosmic way that intentionally harms some people to the benefit of others; that’s one thing. But to undo the real-world consequences of it as if that doesn’t matter in this world at all? No. I can’t vote that way or believe that way because He doesn’t operate that way. Whether you take the story of Eden literally or not, the gist of it is that He gave us choice in the very beginning and He doesn’t interfere with the consequences and rewards of what we have chosen. Others might, but not Him. Evil still exists in this world because we still choose it; we choose self instead of others and Him. And that’s why there’s still death in the world, why there’s still suffering in the world, why there’s still inequity and hatred and greed and poverty and illness and crime and murder and bigotry and ….

Well, you get the idea. I don’t have all the answers. But that much seems obvious.

I choose. You choose. Our kids choose. Their kids choose. And we’re responsible for our own choices; no one else’s. I’m glad and proud that my kids are into adulthood, still forming their own spirituality just like their dad is. I’m proud that Angi and I helped instill and nurture a yearning for a deep spirituality in them. I can hope it leads them into good lives that care deeply about others. So far, it’s looking that way to me. What they do for a living, as far as I’m concerned, is relatively inconsequential compared to how they live their lives.

If they turn out anything like me, they’ll never accept tradition for the sake of tradition; never choose to go along just to get along; never be solely what someone else expects of them.

But sometimes I’m sad I can’t.

Rarely. But sometimes.

Because that would be easy.

Is This How We Want to be Known?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

Many of us folks in churches of Christ are peculiar people.

RefuteYouThe problem is that, somewhere along our journey as a nondenominational nondenomination, too many of us have embraced the misapprehension that we are not only called to be a peculiar people — called out from among those “other” folks in the world — but that we are the One True Church That Has Everything Right and therefore The Only Ones Going to Heaven which means that Everyone Else is Going to Hell.

I guess that makes it incumbent upon so many of us to straighten out everyone who doesn’t see everything — and I mean everything — the way we do.

Considering the vigor with which we pursue that mission, you would think it was Christ’s Great Commission itself. Not so much to save the unsaved souls in this world, but to correct the souls in other churches who think they are already saved but are in fact mistaken on at least a point or two and therefore apostate and blasphemous and even more certainly bound for hell.

So the mission of many of us (whose church signs quote Romans 16:16 as if God had intended it to be the proprietary copyright-protected brand name of our group of believers) is not to salute, but to refute. We must refute everything that does not conform to the doctrines of our tradition.

All of which makes us about as attractive as Sheldon Cooper of television’s Big Bang Theory but without any of the personal charm.

May I just say this to the folks who have been so impressed with our peculiarly-misplaced mission: We’re an autonomous collective, like the peons of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We don’t have an overarching nationwide or multinational church structure. We don’t have imposed discipline for poor behavior. Each congregation does as it pleases, or hopefully, does as the good Lord pleases.

Therefore, I can’t apologize for the folks from churches of Christ who may have ambushed you in this way.

However, I can encourage you to forgive us and pray for us and hope that we will eventually perceive and wish to imitate the winsomeness of our Savior.

We’re not all that way. Some of us are not afraid to question the doctrines jackhammered into our heads and hearts from an early age and welded there by the terror of hellfire if we doubted. Some of us are willing to use logic that adheres to generally-accepted norms, and to imagine God and love and grace as more than Judge and correction and condemnation. Some of us are eager to see salvation as a gracious way of living Christ in this world as well as living with Him in the next. Some of us desire to be self-disciplined; to seek; to learn; to grasp; to embrace; to truly converse rather than just correct. Some of us believe that perfect love really does cast out fear.

Not all of us. The old ways die hard. And they feed our egoes. Some of us still want to get that better-than-thou rush. Some of us are convinced that the word “distinctive” is the most important word in scripture, even though it doesn’t appear there at all. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of browbeating and disciplining of others to maintain that level of certainty and arrogance, but it has persisted for many generations now in some pockets of our sometimes-fellowship, sometimes-similar-brand-name-only. Yet it can’t last forever.

Nothing that comes solely from the heart of man can.

I don’t think anyone can refute that.

I have lived in both camps. There are times — even now, while writing this — that the temptation is strong to leave the camp of the loving correctible and pitch a tent among the angry correctors. But I don’t dare.

There’s really no future in it.

And I still stand in need of correcting myself — frequently, privately, lovingly, and graciously. That’s how I’d prefer it.

But if it must also be firm and well-reasoned and communal and public, then so be it.

I know there will be those who will find this post ultimately offensive, hideously arrogant, and unforgivably divisive. Some of them will have written correctives more personally, more pointedly, naming those whom they judge and condemn without even once having made an effort to go to those folks singly or in twos or threes or even before the church before taking the matter before the whole world — first in printed publications and now digital ones. I refuse to do that. I believe Jesus shared the instructions of Matthew 18:15ff for good reasons. I do not believe that Paul failed to follow them, even if the details of that compliance are not recorded but assumed by scripture. So I do not believe those instructions are optional. Ever.

Let me make it clear: this post isn’t written to the people who will find it offensive, but to those whom they may have offended or condemned or turned completely away from Christ by an inaccurate and incomplete imitation of His just nature uncomplicated by His merciful nature.

I do hope they know this: that I love them anyway; that I want their efforts for God to be of a nature that He can bless them and make them fruitful; that I dearly desire for them to know Christ and the power of His resurrection: a sacrificial new life free of self and the shackles of man-made law and characterized instead by the freedom found in His Spirit to serve creatively and jofully. I wish that for everyone, including me.

Because I need to read and re-read; consider and re-consider my faith, and the way I practice it, and the Lord I seek to serve … more than anyone else.

I don’t think anyone can refute that, either.

Following – 4

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

It’s been a while since I could write a post for this blog. You think the emptiness will diminish, but it doesn’t. You think the confidence will return, but it won’t. You think the words will be there, but they aren’t.

This installment is especially hard to write. Because, to be credible at what you’re writing, you have to be perceived as being knowledgeable about it and good about doing it. I am neither.

This post is about resisting temptation. While Jesus prepared for His ministry with fasting and prayer, He was tempted.

As the last Adam, He resisted temptation in three important ways that the first Adam (and Eve) did not.

When hungry, He turned down food. He was expressing His dependence on God through His fasting, not food, not materiality, not self. Adam and Eve saw the fruit as pleasing to the eye, and consumed it.

When presented with the easy way, Jesus chose the hard way. He could have ruled the earth with Satan and a life of ease. He chose to serve the universe with a death of torture. The first man and woman chose the easy way to learn about good and evil; the quick way; the way that didn’t require walking and talking with God or learning by listening in a garden of grace.

When challenged to verify His identity for His own assurance — to choose fact over faith — Jesus chose faith. He could have thrown Himself down, confident of God’s rescue as His Father. Instead, He chose to believe when fact would have provided certainty. He chose not to tempt God’s interference to prevent a self-destructive act to satisfy a selfish curiosity. The first couple chose to test God’s resolve to introduce them to death that very day; betting that He loved them too much to make good on His word.

There are more temptations in life than these three; but they are foundational.

Will we choose our belly — our self — as our god? Or our God as our God?

Will we choose the easy way to get what we want rather than depend on God’s wisdom and providence for what we need?

Will we gamble that He loves us too much and is too merciful to actually be righteous and just — and therefore to let us see death and destruction as the consequence of what we have done?

I am no expert at resisting temptation. I’ve amassed a lifelong career of failure at the attempt.

But I have a perfect example. So do you.

We just need to understand and keep trying to live out this simple fact:

Following Him means resisting temptation.

Following – 3

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

Jesus fasted.

Among the gospel writers, only Matthew (4) and Luke (4) mention it.

After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 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.

It’s one of the few places in scripture that fasting is mentioned apart from prayer.

I think that’s for the same reason that prayer — and God Himself, for that matter — are never mentioned in the book of Esther, though fasting is. If we can’t see them there, we’re not reaching the right conclusions. If Esther and her people fasted without praying, then all they did was go on a diet. If  justice for her people happened without God, then coincidence is king of the universe, because Hamaan was evil and deserved the consequences of his murderous bigotry.

Likewise, if Jesus went out into the wilderness to prepare for His ministry and fasted without praying, then He was simply on a radical weight-loss program, perhaps designed to make Him look like an ascetic shaman. If He withstood even just the temptation to create food for Himself without the strength that comes from communing with God, then prayer has no power and He was not God’s Son — only a starving mystic with extraordinary self-control.

I’ve blogged a little about fasting before. I’m no expert on it. There are right ways to do it. There are wrong ways to do it. Books have been written about it. Some are doubtless more valuable than others.

With or without reading them, I think we can draw the conclusion from scripture that God’s people fasted, and almost without exception, accompanied their fasts with prayer. Sometimes they expressed petitions and desires. Often they simply praised Him. Other times they mourned and/or repented. They expressed the depth of their need for and dependence on God by going without physical nourishment. In this way, they told Him that He was more important to them than food; that their god was not their stomachs; that they hungered and thirsted for His righteousness; that they had tasted and seen that the Lord is good; that their communication with Him was sacred and private and not for the benefit of being seen by others and regarded as somehow holy for what they had done without.

But if we think we can follow Jesus, minister as He did, resist temptation, and do the things He did while regarding this practice as optional — I believe we’re fooling ourselves.

Fasting is not simply a quaint and ancient custom or a passé commandment from a set of laws that have all served their purpose.

Fasting is a recognition of God’s providence.

It is the physical, expressing the spiritual.

It is hunger, declaring desire.

It is emptiness, seeking fulfillment.

It is the way Jesus chose to prepare for His life of ministry, and to build the strength of His character, His self-discipline before facing forty days of temptation from Satan’s seemingly undivided attention.

You see, that’s what the other synoptic gospel writer, Mark (1), does not fail to communicate:

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Nor was that likely the last time Satan tried:

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. ~ Luke 4:13

If fasting was a source of spiritual strength that could empower Him to journey all the way from the TransJordan to Galilee (see the next verse) … to withstand temptations to satisfy self, seize easy power, trade faith for fact … then why do we ignore, neglect or even reject it?

Following Jesus means fasting and prayer.