The Great Temptations Of Christ Series

So those are the three great temptations and they come to all people, and all people will have to decide what to make of them. Will we try to engineer our lives and never be happy until we achieve the results we think we deserve, or will we live honestly and humbly, doing our best at our respective stations in life, and leave the rest to God? That’s the temptation of turning stones to bread. Will we insist on manipulating God? We will place ourselves above God and expect God to get on our agenda and bless all our plans, or will we – like Jesus did – empty ourselves and give up all our claims to superiority and rightness? That’s the temptation to jump off the temple. Will we run to power as a way of escaping pain and bending the world to the way we want it, or will we embrace poverty of spirit and powerlessness like Jesus did? That’s the temptation to accept power. If we do not face these temptations and resolve them in the same direction that Jesus did, we will never have the Jesus life. We cannot choose in favor of engineering our own lives, always having to be right, and always running to power and expect to become like our Lord who always trusted God to provide, surrendered all his rights, and became powerless. We cannot end the journey in the right place if we start it in the wrong place.