To pursue our own glory

The second temptation we face in the desert season is a temptation to pursue our own power and glory. 

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.  And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.  So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”  Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

During the first year I started working, I realize that I am becoming obsessed with managing my personal finances. I want to track every dollar, and look at my investments everyday, searching for ways to plan my retirement and make my millions. The temptation that the devil presents to Jesus in the desert is much the same that we all encounter along the way. The devil shows him a vision of the prize, power and authority over all of the earth and then provides a way to obtain that – to bow down and worship him. The important thing to recognize in this temptation is that it is based on an outright lie. The devil says that all power and authority has been given to him. This is categorically untrue. We fall for the lie, however, by believing that power and splendor belong to those who have money, so we serve and work for who have money trying to attain it for ourselves. It happens on college campuses as we fall for the lie that power and splendor belong to those who graduate with the best grades, and so we work. There is nothing wrong with making money or getting excellent grades. The temptation is when we fall for the lie.

The truth is that all power and all authority belong to God: “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” I had to learn this principle as it related to my finances. That all money belongs to God, and I was entrusted with some of it by God. My role was to be a good steward of all that he has entrusted to me. I began to apply this principle of stewardship to every area of my life, recognizing that everything belonged to God, including me. The process of recognizing that all that we have, has been given to us by God, and to offer it back to Him is our act of worship to him. All my time belongs to God, and I give it back to you. All of my relationships belongs to you. All knowledge belongs to you. All power belongs to you. All honor belongs to you. All glory belongs to you. With this understanding of God and this heart of worship toward Him, we are able to walk in this desert freely and confidently. When we pursue God’s glory before our own, we are then free to receive from Him all that he has in store for us. The devil’s tactic is get us to pursue our own power and authority deceiving us to crawl around in circles. All the while God is telling us, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

To rely on experience instead of faith

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.  “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.  For it is written:

“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;
They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ”

Jesus answered, “It says, ‘Do not put your Lord your God to the test.’”

What does it mean to put God to the test, and why would it be considered wrong?  To understand the temptation, we have to understand the story behind Jesus’ quote. The complete sentence Jesus is quoting is, “Do not put your Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.” On one occasion when the Israelites were still in the desert, not yet in the Promised Land, they began to quarrel with Moses, asking for water to drink. As Moses prayed to God, God answered them by bringing water from a rock. The story ends as Moses names that location Massah and Meribah “because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”  And there we see the temptation, it is a temptation to prioritize the experience of God’s provision, presence, and guidance over faith in Him.

The devil’s proposition to Jesus was much the same. Imagine the thrill of jumping off the highest building in the city, and then just several feet before you hit the ground, “Boing!” like a bungee cord, you get snapped back up and make a soft landing without a scratch. What a thrill, what a rush, but completely off from God’s plan for us. I believe that I used to be an experience chaser in my spiritual life with God. I would live for one retreat to the next, enamored more by the atmosphere of passionate worship I experienced. I would feel happy, and new, and accepted, until a week or two after the retreat was over. Away from the secluded confines of the retreat center, away from the excitement, the constant community, there was no experience to keep me interested in God. God wants us to go deeper than the experiences, and the desert season is a time when those gifts of emotion are not given to us that we might find something deeper more intimate with God – faith.

A speaker I once heard explained it to me this way. Girls love flowers. They love to smell them, to hold them, to enjoy them, and when they die, they hang them upside down and preserve them. Imagine a handsome young man gave his bride-to-be a beautiful bouquet of flowers as a gift before he left town for a month. And the woman cherished these flowers so much, and she never went anywhere without them. After some time, the woman forgot about the man who gave them because she was just so engrossed by the beauty of the flowers. Then, imagine the man comes back to his bride-to-be, greets her at the door, and she responds, “Who are you?” all the while caressing the beautiful flowers in her hands. In the same way, these great emotions and experiences are like the gifts that God gives – but his desire is that we would be in love with the Giver, and not the gifts. I used to be upset when God took away my gifts and left me in this place without the passion and emotions that I felt I needed. I realize now, that he stopped giving me those gifts so that I would have something even greater, and intimate relationship with God Himself.

1. Observation - Have you ever placed your desire for success over your desire to keep Jesus the center of your life?

2. Understanding - How have spiritual experiences helped or not helped your relationship with God?

3. Application - How can I walk in faith today?