Lesson Eight - The Ego Trip Temptation
…he said, “If you are …”
Satan premised two of the challenges he posed to the Lord with “If you are the Son of God…”
This is an invitation to take an ego trip. Satan knew Jesus is the Son of God and Jesus knew same. He was therefore provoking Him to use the supernatural attributes that accompanies His position for self-gratification; to do things ordinary humans could not do, right there. It did not matter whether God wanted that done or not.
Most definitely, one that has the Creator of the earth as His father lacks nothing and is capable of everything, but by the permission and will of the Creator. Jesus had come to live as a man and to respond to circumstances in everyway as God will have His children respond to Him. He came from glory, but had to live by obedience.
It is also an invitation to lazy window-dressing. It was by the totality of His life on earth that Jesus was to show who He was, his mission on earth how it means to be a Son of God, not by a single spectacular act. Satan was provoking Him to use a short-cut to ‘achieve’ what He had come to do with the whole of is life. Who was Jesus to show that He was the Son of God? The whole earth! If anybody accepted that Jesus was the Son of God, he would be saved. It was not all the people who even heard the declaration from heaven at the baptism believed Him. His work included letting all people know and accept Him. And Jesus was not going to achieve that by responding to Satan’s provocation. In similar fashion, we are often tricked into doing some window-dressing ourselves to show that we are living as children of God, whereas in reality we are not obeying God. Do we organise and comply with programs we know mean nothing, accept preaching and ministration assignments we are not prepared for, and respond to all sorts of external demands with the real motive of only showing the world that we are also the sons of God? Such careless compliance and obedience to voices that did not call us does not fulfil God’s will for us and diverts us from what God wants us to really do.
Satan premised two of the challenges he posed to the Lord with “If you are the Son of God…”
This is an invitation to take an ego trip. Satan knew Jesus is the Son of God and Jesus knew same. He was therefore provoking Him to use the supernatural attributes that accompanies His position for self-gratification; to do things ordinary humans could not do, right there. It did not matter whether God wanted that done or not.
Most definitely, one that has the Creator of the earth as His father lacks nothing and is capable of everything, but by the permission and will of the Creator. Jesus had come to live as a man and to respond to circumstances in everyway as God will have His children respond to Him. He came from glory, but had to live by obedience.
It is also an invitation to lazy window-dressing. It was by the totality of His life on earth that Jesus was to show who He was, his mission on earth how it means to be a Son of God, not by a single spectacular act. Satan was provoking Him to use a short-cut to ‘achieve’ what He had come to do with the whole of is life. Who was Jesus to show that He was the Son of God? The whole earth! If anybody accepted that Jesus was the Son of God, he would be saved. It was not all the people who even heard the declaration from heaven at the baptism believed Him. His work included letting all people know and accept Him. And Jesus was not going to achieve that by responding to Satan’s provocation. In similar fashion, we are often tricked into doing some window-dressing ourselves to show that we are living as children of God, whereas in reality we are not obeying God. Do we organise and comply with programs we know mean nothing, accept preaching and ministration assignments we are not prepared for, and respond to all sorts of external demands with the real motive of only showing the world that we are also the sons of God? Such careless compliance and obedience to voices that did not call us does not fulfil God’s will for us and diverts us from what God wants us to really do.
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