This morning I was reading Matthew, which I haven’t read in quite a while. So I actually took my time and went through it more thoroughly than I sometimes do for stories I’ve read before. I was chapter four, when Jesus is in the desert being tempted by Satan after He’s just been baptized, that really caught my attention.
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[a]”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
He’s already been tempted with food to eat after fasting for weeks, and with showing off His immense favor with God: that He could jump off a cliff and never even damage a foot. Then in verse 8, Satan tempts Him with what looks like ultimate earthly glory. When I’ve read this passage before, I never really thought that this was a very tough temptation, especially in relation to the other two. Satiating a physical hunger doesn’t even seem like a bad thing except that it was against God’s will at the time. And showing Satan that God is more powerful regardless of his rebellion, that is definitely something that would tempt me! But Jesus was sustained by His great connection to God and knew both that God would provide everything He needed to survive, and the kind of actions/thoughts that would bring Him joy... rubbing the devil’s face in it probably isn’t one of those things, I’d wager.
Jesus had come from heaven where He knew true glory so the glories of earthly accomplishment hardly seemed like much of a temptation to my mind. But if it hadn’t tempted Him, Satan wouldn’t have tried it. He was “one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” Heb. 4:15. It occurred to me that Jesus humbled Himself to come down to earth where He was a “nobody”. So maybe what was tempting Him was not the possession of earthly kingdoms, but the pride of being held up as an important person again rather than being passed by as the son of a carpenter whose birth was a little scandalous.
If this past year and a half has taught me anything, it is that I struggle with pride. If I’m honest with myself, I would have to admit that I didn’t think terribly highly of pre-school teachers before I became one, so I really can’t blame anyone else for holding the same impressions. But it is so hard to hear people’s reactions to what I do, and see the associated implications of my drive or intellect form on their faces. The funny part is, a lot of it is probably imagined and the rest made to loom before my eyes by Satan. It is certainly not of God.
Unlike me, Jesus didn’t entertain the devil’s notions. He was tempted, and I find some reassurance in the fact that it did tempt Him, but He tells Satan to get away. The power He relies on to enforce this is the conviction of truth in vs. 10: “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” Worship God, not your pride. Serve God, not your short-sighted or selfish desires. If God has called someone to a work or a path, then there is enough to be righteously proud of in it and much good beyond the obvious to be found in it.
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “It seems that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." Instead of desiring and seeking all the immeasurable good God has for me in a particular place/time/situation, in my pride, I seek something that I think I can control or arrange and thus something that is bound to leave me wanting. I pray that God would strengthen my desires and make me see the mud pies I would make in relation to His holiday at the sea, and that He would break me (gently!) of my pride and give me instead a stronger foundation on which to stand!
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