Friday, March 20, 2009
I am pretty familiar with the temptations of Jesus. But as they always say, the beauty of the scriptures is that no matter how many times you read it, there is always something new to it. I got to testify to it.
This time I was brought to how Satan asked Jesus “If you are the son of God” which challenges our identity. Sometimes the reason why we are so desperate to prove ourselves is because we don’t know who we are in Christ. What Satan is tempting Jesus really is to prove that He is the son of God. But He didn’t need to. An easy illustration is, if I am smart when people provoke me and insult my intelligence and ask me to prove myself, do I? No I don’t need to. Often, it’s the people who are unsure of their capabilities who are oh-so-desperate to prove themselves. Therefore, I need to remind myself of who I really am in Him to know that I don’t need God’s extraordinary blessings to prove that I am a child of God. I am a child of God, period.
More about Mr Satan. Satan promised Jesus everything under the sun which is pretty self elusive. Everything belongs to God. Satan controlled a lot of things yes, but he didn’t control EVERYTHING which he claims. It reminds me of how we are often tricked by lies by the devil who seem to promise us that if we turn our backs to God, we will get everything. Not true. The devil tries to tempt us by saying our own strength can do everything. Not true. God is the one who created the heavens and the earths and everything. He is THE one who has control over everything. By extension, sometimes, we lose sight of God’s enormous glory while giving in to the devil’s short term gains. We trade God’s grand purpose for us for devil’s temporal joy. Quite stupid on hindsight, but don’t we do it all the time, consciously and subconsciously? When we don’t see the eternal joy, hope and life in God, we accept whatever Satan gives us and miss out the thing of ultimate importance in our lives.
And I thought the study bible puts in the next line in a nice way.
“Jesus refuses to demand God's protection on his own terms. Such a demand is neither faith nor loyalty; it is sin.”
I think it’s a line that is worth thinking over. It talks about the nature of God and our alliegence. God is not a money tree whom we call upon whenever we need help. Sin, simply defined, is walking away from God. The fact that we are demanding Him to protect us shows that we assume that we are Lord which is obviously not true. We can’t demand God to do all these when He is the one who created us right.
Innocence
10:40 PM
