Temptation and God

I was meditating on my own temptations and sin. What is temptation? The Bible says that Jesus was tempted just like us. Temptation is merely being presented with an option that is not what God has offered. Jesus was offered an option to turn stones into bread, power and fame and even worship a different god.

Could Jesus really be tempted just like us? Yes, I am questioning the Bible, in particular, Hebrews 4:15. In the sense that temptation is being offered an option that is other than what God has given us, yes Jesus was tempted. He was tempted by the greatest advocate for sin the world has ever known. But there was no question that Jesus would not sin. It was a real temptation, a real option, but it paled.

The choice that Jesus had was food or breaking fellowship with his Father and the Spirit. It was forsaking the perfect fellowship that he had experienced since before time for some bread. It was a full-fledged temptation – but it was not a good trade. The tug of the temptation was not there because the Son had perfect knowledge of perfect fellowship with the perfect Father. The choice was just not worth it.

Every day I am given choices. Many of them are neutral – a route to work, a meal for lunch. But sprinkled in are other options:
- to covet what a more wealthy person has, or be content with what God has given me
- to become angry when I am wronged, or to forgive
- to allow my eyes and heart to linger on someone who is not my own, or rejoice in the relationships that God has given me

And because I do not have a God-entranced vision of all things, that temptation blossoms into sin. The seed germinates into an ugly vine of poison ivy.

- So I want to see every temptation as a choice between fellowship with my redeemer and something that, may be sweet for a time but does not match fellowship with the one who loved me so much that he hung on the cross for me.
- I want to keep my devotional times like dates with God so that I grow in my understanding of how sweet that fellowship really is.
- I want to meditate on the attributes of God so that I better understand, in the words of Chris Tomlin, “How great is our God”.
- I want to mediate on the work of the cross, so that, in the words of George Bennard “I love that old cross, where the dearest and best, for a world of lost sinners was slain.”

To that old rugged cross
I will ever be true,
its shame and reproach gladly bear;
then he'll call me some day to my home far away,
where his glory forever I'll share.