You can tell a lot about a person by what the devil chooses to tempt them with. Let’s look at Eve.
Eve gets a bad rap, but we can see through her temptation she believes God. She even goes so far as to lay an extra rule down when Satan asks her “Did God really say you cannot eat from every tree?” She tells him WHICH tree and then adds on “we cannot even TOUCH it”. I think this shows her deep commitment to make VERY CERTAIN she did not go anywhere NEAR the forbidden tree. When the devil realized He couldn’t trip her up on the KNOWLEDGE of the rules, he then went for the heart, telling her, amongst other things, that the fruit would “make her wise like God.” The devil had taken time to study her, to see what she prized. Perhaps she loved God so much, she wanted to be like Him (wise). The only problem? In her pursuit to be LIKE Him, she FORGOT Him. But we see from this temptation what tempted her was what meant a lot to her.
Jesus was no different. After fasting for 40 days, Satan tempted him with the best of the worst: food. This shows us that Jesus was both fully God and FULLY MAN. When that was unsuccessful, the devil once again moved from physical tempting to the heart: “IF you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from the temple”. This would be very tempting because it would SHOW THE WORLD who Jesus truly was – negating faith and the cross. Why was that so tempting to Jesus? BECAUSE HE LOVES US SO MUCH he desires us to be with Him. Let’s look at the final temptation: “Worship me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the world.” Think of that! No wars, no hunger, no abuses of powers…but no salvation either. That was tempting to Jesus because it would limit the suffering of people.
In 2/3 of the temptations, they were tempting because of US! Jesus love for US is the only thing left Satan had to tempt Jesus with – not riches for himself or esteem or ANYTHING for Jesus, himself – but US! In all the temptations US and OUR WELFARE was used. That shows what was truly most important to Jesus & why we can know how much He loves us so!
Sweet Mimosa 