The First Temptation of Jesus
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We all face temptation. But it might surprise you, even Jesus, who is God faced them – so He knows what we go through.
Immediately after his Baptism, Jesus goes into the desert to pray and fast for forty days in preparation for his ministry. There the devil tempts Jesus.
In the first temptation the devil says: 'If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to turn into bread.' Jesus responds, Man does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Jesus resists temptation by establishing his priority – a relationship with His Father in prayer. Priority means “most important.” You can’t really have more than one priority. Having a clear priority helps to keep everything else in its place and life on track. For Jesus, a deep friendship with his Father is the priority and it keeps the rest of his life going in the right direction.
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The first temptation of the devil is to turn our priorities, upside down.
Satan says to us: “Listen, work is overwhelming right now, and you can’t ignore the needs of your kids, plus you are exhausted. God is merciful. He will always be there for you. Take a break today from your prayer. You need to veg out and watch a show or sleep a little longer. God will understand.”
Everything Satan said might be true: Work may be overwhelming, the kids have endless needs, you probably are exhausted and God is merciful. Satan tells us things that are true to confuse us to get us away from God. One day turns into two, then a week and before we realize it, we have fallen away from prayer for months.
Do we fall into this trap? Do we take care of the tyranny of the urgent and leave God for later? When we do this – are we really happy, and at peace?
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If we are tempted to think we are too busy to pray then we need to step back and evaluate our life.
We want to be happy. We will only be happy and at peace if we have a deep friendship with God. But friendship takes time, talking to Him from the heart, listening to him and just being with him.
If we have no time for prayer, then we can never be happy and at peace. So here we must make a decision. What needs to change in my life so there is time for friendship with God?
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Pope Benedict says: The first and essential thing is a listening heart, so that God, not we, may reign. The Kingdom of God comes by way of a listening heart. That is the path. And that is what we must pray for again and again. Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth Part 1, p. 145-146
The priority for Jesus, the first and essential thing was listening to His Father each day. Jesus knew that if he did that one thing, everything else will fall into place.
C.S. Lewis wrote: “put first things first and we get the second things thrown in; put second things first and we lose both first and second things.”
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The mountain on which Jesus faced the first temptation of the Devil is at Jericho, the oldest continually inhabited city in the world.
Before Jericho began, people were hunters and gatherers. They were too busy to think, ponder and pray.
Then at Jericho they became agricultural which gave them the time to think about the most important questions in life: Where do we come from; what is the real purpose of life; where are we going after death? This led to thinking and wonder and philosophy, and to prayer and religion. Humans evolved from hunters and gathers to those who think and pray and talk and worship God.
But now we have De-volved. We’ve gone back to the busyness of the hunter-gatherer. Now we have no time to think, no time to pray, no time to talk to or worship God. This is the temptation of the devil – “Hey, Jesus – get busy and make bread.” To be BUSY is to Be Under Satan’s Yoke.