The Nature of Temptation Part 3
Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
Matt 4: 8-11
The idea of worship concludes Jesus’ encounter with Satan. We might think of worship as singing hymns on Sunday. Yet, I think in that day they had a deeper understanding of worship. To them worship was the act of giving one’s self to God. Paul said we should give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice as our worship. To the folks in the first century worship was the act of giving themselves away. (For more on this topc, see my article on the meaning of worship)
I believe we human beings were made for worship. We all worship something. We all give our heart to something or somebody. Satan’s great temptation is to worship something other than God.
Why is worship so vital to our completion? What we worship, we possess. Give yourself to the pursuit of bread alone, and you will probably find bread. Give yourself to God, and you will have God. Worship is a divine romance really. It is us giving ourselves to the Lord and Him giving Himself to us. And it is only this divine exchange that can fill the soul.
It is this divine exchange that Satan wants to steal from us more than anything. His great purpose is not to make us bad people. His purpose is to make us a people without God.
Doug Reed
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Doug,
Excellent post. Well said about worship.
Thanks for bringing God's plan of worship and Satan's counterstrategy to our remembrance:
Sometimes it helps knowing Satan's counterstrategy, thus the form of temptation. Doug, as you well know, there is a temptation even in knowing how temptation is coming to us. It occurs to me that we are to resist temptation, but not merely by doing the opposite. I think that it is important to remember that if we worship as a counter to a strategy (and I know you are not suggesting that we should), it is not worship. We are actually responding to the devil rather than giving ourselves to God.
"I think that it is important to remember that if we worship as a counter to a strategy (and I know you are not suggesting that we should), it is not worship. We are actually responding to the devil rather than giving ourselves to God."
That's a good point.
Doug,
Thanks for the kind words.