There is alot in this passage. But waht get's my attention is, it all gets back to the centrality of Jesus. It does not matter who I am (A part of Abraham's family or not. (vs. 3:8-9)) It is not about a birthright. It does not matter what I have done. I am not good enough, nor am I too bad. Either way repentance is the answer. I cannot fool Christ (He knows who is genuine and who is faking it. (vs. 3:12)) It is not enough to realize that the world does not revolve around me, I must also realize that it does revolve around Christ.
There is an instruction for me to obey in this passage - repent. Specifically repent from the sin of making decisions based on my wants and desires and not based upon who Jesus is.
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Something that made me stop and ponder was the fact that Satan tried to tempt Jesus to worship him, even knowing who Jesus was, causes me to fear the depths of Satan's desire to turn every one of us away from God. Jesus, being perfect and omniscient, was able to resist, but when I think of all the craziness in our world caused by greed and corruption, it's easy to see that we humans have been so weak and so easily tempted.
ReplyDeleteI pray for strength to resist the pull of the world and focus my attention on God's instructions.
WOW, my brain was going somewhere totally different but then I read the first comment, and that is something I never realized before. The nerve Satan has to temp JESUS CHRIST himself to worship him, after Jesus' Dad kicked him and his posse out of heaven he is fearless, for now. :) I think many times we don't realize Satan is often More determined to sink us than we are to stay afloat!
ReplyDeleteI also pray for strength to stand against the smallest temptation, help me be vigilant.
The thing I like about this passage is Jesus had to go through this for us! Not only did He humble Himself and "became obedient to death, even death on a cross!" By resisting the temptation He defeated satan. Like the previous comment satan had the nerve to ask Jesus to worship him! This is why He is so much better than me. If my enemy would have ever asked that of me it would turn into an ugly scene fast. Even though Jesus was victorious I truly believe He had the power, authority, and capability to just "burn him up" right there. I think in that way He was still putting us first, because God had a plan for Him and He stayed the course. I think the resitance of doing that was the greatest temptation He resisted even though it is not actually a documeneted one. May God bless me with the abilities to overcome obvious temptation and the not so obvious.
ReplyDeleteJosh La Seur
Everyone is thinking about the temptation of Jesus by satan and I think that it is a great thing to think about.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I was thinking about after reading this:
Satan is very cunning. Matt 4:5-6 shows just how cunning he is. He even knows scripture and can quote it (Psalm 91:11-12 is what he quotes) but he doesn't quote it correctly. He left out the part that says "to keep you in all your ways". My friend made the comment that satan was cunning in his use of God's word all the way back in Genesis. (Eve and the fall)
For me that was a great reminder that I MUST know God's word well to resist satan and to defeat him. Even Jesus the Messiah and Savior needed to use Scriptures so why do I think that I don't need too???
One last comment(from my bible footnotes):
The defeat of satan in twofold-
1. Resist him and his tricks
2. Defeat him by using Scripture consistently and meaningfully.