I Want to Have That

“Then the devil took Him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order His angels to protect you. And they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’” - Matthew 4:5-6 
 
As we continue to look at the three ways Satan tempts us, we go back to a time in Matthew 4 when Jesus was tempted, Himself. Remember, Jesus was fully God and was also fully human. And thus He faced the same temptations we face today.

Now over 2,000 years later, the devil’s strategies have not changed. He is using the same things he used to appeal to Jesus to appeal to us. Yesterday, we looked at the first type of temptation, the lust of the flesh, or the desire to “feel that.” Today, we look at the lust of the eye, or in other words, “I want to have that...”  

Satan makes his second attempt to tempt Jesus in Matthew 4:5-6 when he says,  

“Then the devil took Him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order His angels to protect you. And they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’”
 
What Satan was appealing to is the pleasure Jesus would feel, even though it would hurt Him. Jesus, once again, responds perfectly when He says in verse 7, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’”  

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Even though we know it will hurt us, the pleasure aspect outweighs the pain. The only problem with that is that it is short-term thinking. Satan loves to appeal to our desire to want to HAVE something.
 
He does it all the time! He is smart. He learns what we want and finds ways to put it in front of us. But be careful. 1 John 2:15-16 tells us,

“Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.”