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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion March 3, 2008 The Last Temptation |
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Frontline Devotion for Monday, March 3, 2008 by Fritz Foltz
Matthew 27: 39-43 Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.’ In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said, “I am God’s Son.” ’ The bandits who were crucified with him also taunted him in the same way.
Jesus’ ministry began and ended with temptations. When he was considering to what kind of ministry God called him, Satan challenged, “If you are the Son of God, then take care of yourself, command God to grant you special favors, and don’t be afraid to use evil in order to gain power”. In other words “Don’t be the person God wants you to be”.
Now at the end of his life as he is dying on the Cross, the crowd that includes religious authorities and criminals repeat the same words, “If you are the Son of God, then save yourself, come down from the Cross”. Again the temptation is “Don’t do what God wants you to do”. In this case, it included being willing to suffer for others.
So too as we consider our Christian lives we are daily tempted, “If you are a son or daughter of God, then take advantage of his love, ask for personal favors”. Again the basic temptation is, “Don’t be the person God called you to be; don’t love god and other people especially if it means suffering in doing so”.
We usually think of temptation as luring us to make evil actions. The scriptures make clear it is more about not doing the good things. The great challenge for Christians is to practice what we preach.
I am always reminded of this at our high school reading group. Young people constantly struggle to understand how Christians can so easily fail to practice their beliefs. They ask how we can go to war when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, how we can be prejudiced when Jesus tell us to love our neighbors, and how we can ignore the poor when Jesus tells us to share what we have. Adults often dismiss this as the naïve, untested thinking of immature children. As I sit with the young people, I am always forced to see it as a challenge it stand by the promises I made to Jesus.
Don’t give in easily to temptations whether from the mouth of Satan, the lure of public opinion or the advice of your best friend.
Let us pray: Inspire us, Father, to rethink our lives, testing our ideas against Jesus’ teaching. Lead us not into temptation. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.
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