“Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.’” (Matthew 4:10)
Jesus was engaged in a spiritual battle throughout His life. When he started His ministry, he went out into the wilderness to confront Satan His adversary. The devil thought he could trap Jesus and cause Him to sin. This incident shows us that Satan is very cunning and devious. He has a command of scripture and can cite it from memory. Though he could not fool Jesus, he can and often does fool us. He tempts both believers and unbelievers alike with the lusts of the flesh. He tempts Christians by subtly using God’s word to justify questionable, worldly, immoral and selfish behavior. Satan did this successfully with Eve in the Garden of Eden, but unsuccessfully with Jesus. If he can tempt us to use Scripture to justify selfish actions we can be fooled into thinking that the desire or thought is from God Himself. We think God wants us to act in a certain way.
Satan also works through false prophets and counterfeit Christians who twist God’s word so that it seems that God’s will is that all His children deserve to indulge themselves, to fulfill their fleshly desires, to be healthy, wealthy, selfish, famous, and proud. Thus we think we can live like the world because we think that it is what God wants when in reality it is what we want. When we fall prey to the devil in this way, then we are useless to God.
The temptations that the devil used to try and trap Jesus were like our own temptations: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and selfish pride. Jesus was easily able to overcome these for He knew His mission, He knew God’s Word, and He knew the Father’s will. And so should we know His will, His word and our mission so we can overcome.