Thy Kingdom Come

Luke 4:5-8
"The the devil led Him up and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.  And the devil said to Him, 'To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.'  Jesus answered him, 'It is written, Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him.'"


Well, we are just making our way through these verses, huh?  Just to recap, Jesus has just been filled with the Holy Spirit and been fasting and praying in the wilderness for forty days.  And now, when He is weak and tired, the devil has decided to tempt his Maker.  You know, just the fact that the devil is allowed to tempt Jesus says a lot about our God.  The devil is the guy that tries to ruin everything God has touched.  He is the enemy, and he has the gall to approach his rejected Maker with temptation.  And he is allowed!  Jesus hears him out.  I wonder if Jesus has the same hope of reuniting with His fallen angel as He does for reuniting with His fallen children.  He found a loop hole for us...

This second temptation at first seemed like such a no brainer to me.  How on earth did the devil think that he could trip up Jesus, the Son of God, a third of the Holy Trinity, by suggesting that Jesus worship him?  What was the atmosphere like after he asked Jesus this?  Did he realize how silly his temptation seemed?  Did Jesus raise his eyebrow or chuckle at the audacious request?

But there had to be a temptation in there somewhere.

How many of us really want to know when, where, and how we are going to die?  I personally don't.  Well, Jesus knew exactly when, where, and most importantly, how.  He was brutally crucified on the cross, an innocent killed in the most graphic way.  Why?  Because we are worth more to Him than life itself.  He wanted nothing more than to have His estranged children back with Him.  And here, the devil is offering Jesus an easy way out: no blood and pain necessary...just bent knees.  This is definitely the kind of looping "promise" the devil is known for: I'll surrender everything if you surrender to me.

In giving into this temptation, Jesus would be getting what He most wanted, His kingdom.  All He needed to do was forsake who He was.  How easy is it to forfeit a little of your identity just to make things less of a struggle?  There are two radio stations that I listen to, KLOVE and AIR1.  Their goal is to give people a positive radio haven with encouraging words and songs and to spread the Good News. Both are listener supported, and there have been incredibly skinny times for them. Well, a year ago, I think they both only got somewhere between 60-80 percent funded, meaning they were going to have to cut some locations and probably employees.  This struggle could have been easily alleviated if they had just decided to sacrifice their commercial-free status and looked for corporate funding like all other radio stations.  Sure, this would change some time of their programming and probably make them answerable to people who don't fully support their message, but they would be able to save their employees and locations.

They decided to trust in God (a touch back to Jesus' first temptation), and this year, they reached 100 percent funding early on their pledge drives!  Jesus also declined the devil's offer.  First of all, the earth's kingdoms aren't his to give, and second of all, Jesus wasn't primarily after the glory and authority over the kingdoms.  He was and still is after our hearts.

Of course, Jesus is reinforcing the habit of using the word of God as a defense and uses the first Commandment, "You shall have no other gods before Me."  I really wonder if the devil had a fist-to-forehead moment.  Of course!  That is the one scripture a child could have called upon.  How would Jesus not think of it?  So now, Jesus is two for two...