City Life Starter

Written by Paul Lane

The Word

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
    cursed are you above all livestock
    and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
    and dust you shall eat
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring (seed) and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”

Genesis 3:14-15 ESV

⁵ And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, ⁶ and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. ⁷ If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” ⁸ And Jesus answered him, “It is written,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
    and him only shall you serve.’”

Luke 4:5-8 ESV

Reflection

There is an interesting parallel in the tempting of Christ and the trials of Job.  It is set down by God the Father for both to face Satan with no obvious help from God.  In Job’s case, God says to Satan, “have you considered my servant Job.”  For Jesus, he is led out to the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted.  In both cases God has chosen someone to suffer public humiliation to prove a point, and in both cases the person He chose did not bend the knee. 

After 40 days without food, I don’t think I could resist turning stones into the most wonderful herb encrusted loaves of bread, if I had the power.  So that’s the temptation that I most likely would stumble on.  I’ve never been that eager to be in charge of everything, so the offer to have authority over all the world’s kingdoms does not strike me as much of a temptation.  But that is not quite the right way to think of it.

You must start with the first question; who is man?  In Genesis 1 & 2 we learn that God created a world and then created man out of the stuff of that world and of His own breath.  This is where we first learn that man is precious to God.  Moving on to Genesis 3, we learn of man’s fall and God’s desire to redeem His treasure.  But this is also where we learn that because of that fall, Satan has authority over all these kingdoms.  He won that authority in the fall of man.  So, the offer Satan makes is legitimate.

Also, you must understand that it is the base nature of man to be a worshiper, and in the fall of man that nature was bent to worship Satan, usually manifesting as what we perceive to be self-worship.  Jesus, the incorruptible man, represents the unbending of man’s worship from Satan back to God.  But to accomplish this Jesus must be crucified.  So, the offer that Satan is making is just a shortcut.  Satan is saying, “bow to me and man will worship you and you will not have to go to the cross.  Sure, I’ll still be on top, but you’ll be free to redeem man however you like.  No fuss, no muss.”

Application

So often for us, the temptation of sin is to bend the knee for only a moment, then we can go about our days as we please, not knowing how much we’ve given up.  In our hearts we are despising the beautiful for the “good enough,” which is not good at all.  As C. S. Lewis puts it:

“It would seem 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.”

There is a greater life to which we are called, but access to that life is only found through a relationship with our creator.  He who created all things is able to establish joy, peace, and happiness within you.  Turn to Him.

Prayer

Dear Lord, I confess that I have been far too easily pleased with lesser things.  You have invited me to the most wonderful life and I have shunned it preferring life in the gutter.  I pray that You renew my mind and heart.  Draw me into Your presence and change me into Your best imagination of me.  In all things I trust in You.  Amen.