Temptation of Jesus

Luke 4

why was Jesus fasting in the desert? what was He doing there?

my childhood response is Jesus is preparing Himself for His ministry. He was just baptized by John and He now has to get away before His ministry begins. good answer? sure...but a surface answer. this does not answer the "what is Jesus preparing himself for" question.

i was reading Barclay's commentary alongside Luke 4. he brought up a through provoking question. it's hard to know his statement as truth because the only way to know it as truth is to get it from the source itself. Barclay lived before my time but he is not as old as Jesus.

as i am processing what he said and comparing it to other things Jesus has said during his ministry, recorded in his gospels, it's beginning to make some sense to me. i may be look upon as a idiot because this may be well known to others but this is a first to me.

* Jesus retired to His lonely place and for forty days He wrestled with the problem of HOW he could win men.

my juvenile thought was Jesus was in the desert for Himself. to a degree He was but the overall purpose (was was His while ministry and life) he was in the desert for self sacrificing reasons. obviously this is why He was fasting...why is it too much a thought that He went to prove self control to His father (in fasting) and seeking His fathers direction on an extraordinary question..."how to win men for the glory of God."

NOW... my heart this changes Jesus' answers towards Jesus temptations. hell, this even changes the reason for Satan to temp Jesus.

this is not about Jesus overcoming Himself (as my original thought was and has been) for self serving reasons as much as it is Jesus overcoming how he wins the world.

Satan is telling Him how he should win this world over...which his way leads to pride. Jesus responds to Satan, in His answers, it's not about Me...it's about My Father.

A) Satan: "turn this stone into bread"
yeah, you bet Jesus is hungry because of His fast but check out Jesus' response out of Deut. 8:3, "man does not live on bread alone." still can be interpreted as trying to get Jesus to fall into sin...breaking His fast but the context of Deut. 8:3 is man will never find life in material things.
what if Satan is saying to Jesus, if you want people to follow You, use your wonderful powers to give them material things." bribing people to follow him.

B) Satan: "bow to me and i will give this all to You."
temptation of compromise. Satan says to strike a bargain with me and i will give you the people you desire to win over because they have been given to me. Jesus' response it there is not compromise in the war on evil (Deut. 6:13)

C) Satan: "from the highest point of the temple, throw yourself down from here...for it's written that God will command all the angles to protect you carefully."
sensationalism: a manner of being extremely controversial, loud, or attention-grabbing. this is Satan's temptation. Jesus says there is no need to make senseless experiemtns with the power of God (this is a trust thing).
there are times when God chooses to use His power through people to prove Himself but there is no need to prove God to Satan because he knows of God...this is a prideful trick. Jesus is aware of this and says, thanks but no thanks.


Satan is not trying to get Jesus to sin as (in one occasion) much as he is trying to set his ministry up for prideful failure...which in the end is sinful. Satan victory is not to get us to sin (one time) but to get us to fall into a lifestyle of sin that will ruin our life in Christ...to make us ineffective.

To me this makes sense when Jesus does preform miracles and afterwards he demands the individual to "not tell anyone of this" (though they always go off and blabber their mouths). Jesus knows it's not about Him but it's about His Father.