Temptation…
It was Oscar Wilde who said, “I can resist everything except temptation”.
That little thought that once it’s in our minds, we just can’t get rid of. Go on … just one; …no one will know; …what will it matter anyway; …you know you want to.
Temptation – the seduction, the pull, the lure. Knowing you shouldn’t – but…
Temptation is where Jesus ministry starts. After the story of his birth, childhood and his baptism, this is the first thing that happens. Luke tells us that Jesus returns from the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit, and is led by the Spirit into the desert.
It is while he is in the Desert that the Devil shows up, and decides he is going to test Jesus – to tempt him to take the wrong path, to go about it all the wrong way.
Jesus is in the desert to have some time apart, and at this point he has to make decisions on what the foundation for his ministry is going to be. Is he going to do it God’s way, the way he has been called to – or is he going to be led into doing it another way, taking the path that is not God’s, and therefore ultimately not achieving what God wants to do.
The devil challenges Jesus in three different ways:
- To turn a stone into bread. Provide for yourself, look to the physical things. You’re hungry, you can make something happen yourself.
- To worship the devil – that he might receive the world.
- To throw himself down, because surely God would look after him anyway. Take ridiculous risks, try and make God to act.
All these were to try and make him choose the way that wasn’t God’s way.
- God would feed Jesus, but bread is not all he needed. Spiritual needs are important too – and they won’t be met by taking short cuts, or focussing solely on the physical.
- God would meet his every need. Jesus would receive the world and more – the reality of it, not the poor shadow the devil was offering that might seem so attractive, but is inconsequential in the greater scheme of things.
- God will save Jesus, but not by him jumping off a cliff. He will do much more in saving Jesus in a way that will save the whole world too.
The devil will come to us in different guises, and with different challenges – but the challenge is always the same. To do things God’s way, or to take a different path. We need to decide which we are going to do, whose voice and challenge we are going to answer. Is the basis for our lives to be the way of God, or not?
There are many different things that can lead us astray. Something that may seem better, easier, more useful. But if it is not God’s way, then ultimately it is not the right way to go – however tempting.
Temptation – you CAN take it or leave it.
Keep us from Temptation.
May we look to God, who gives us everything we need, not just what we think we might like at this moment; who will give us the whole world and more, as we serve and worship him; and who will take care of us as we walk in his ways.
Pam's Perambulation 