No shortcuts

Luke 4:5-8 Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will
worship before me, all will be Yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”

Devil was showing off his authority and power, trying to entice Jesus to worship him. The nature of this temptation was greed. Everything that the devil was showing off in fact did belong to him because Adam gave up his authority when he disobeyed God in the garden of Eden. So yes it was true that everything in the world belonged to the devil but what was he trying to communicate?

Jesus came to redeem us and give us back the authority we gave up in the garden of Eden. Here it seems that the devil was trying to make his job easier. He was enticing Jesus to take a shortcut thereby asking him not to suffer through the cross. In the sense Jesus was being enticed to skip the
God planned process and hence question the Father’s Lordship.

So many times we know what God has for us (destination), but are unaware of the steps and the process. This is because God expects us to trust him in every step that we take which is a major challenge. Our thoughts and our ways are so different from God and sometimes we also try to help God.

In the old testament we see so many examples of those who tried taking shortcuts in achieving their God given purposes and failed miserably. Abraham and Hagar, the perfect example where Abraham fails to trust God and has a child with Hagar. Or Moses for instance, he tries to use his
position in the palace to fulfills God’s purpose which fails miserably and he had to run away into the wilderness.

Jesus was unaffected by the offer. His response simply was ‘ worship’. An example for us in our daily walk. Every specific detail of our walk might be not clear but we can yet trust God and worship Him knowing that He is in control. Christian life is a lifestyle of worship. Jesus took a strong stand in
falling down prostrate only before God. He would only regard God as the Lord of His life.

Samuel Thomas (Sam)
Sam is a Christian minister who is serving the Lord in various capacities. He is working through Cross Impact and also involved with Crossway Church. He can be reached on samvthom16@gmail.com