Theological Commentary: Click Here
The last few
days the focus on leadership has been on humanity. Today, we get perhaps the best look in the
Bible on a spiritual conflict. Today is
Jesus, the Son of God, versus Satan, the great deceiver that fell from
heaven. Today we get to see good
leadership versus improper leadership. Today
we get to see the grand conflict of the ages.
First, Satan
finds Jesus in the desert and tempts him with food. Jesus reminds Satan that man doesn’t live by
food alone. What is the message
here? The human pursuit of our wants isn’t
enough. If life is about fulfilling what
I want, I’m going to come up short, angry about the shallow life I live.
Second,
Satan takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and tells Jesus to demonstrate
His position by leaping of the temple. Satan
says that by leaping off of the temple, God will send His angels to save Him
and Jesus will see just how important He is.
Jesus tells Satan to not put God to the test. In other words, Jesus tells Satan exactly
what we’ve heard in the last two chapters.
Godly leadership is about pursuing God’s agenda, not our own. It shouldn’t matter how important I am, what
matters is that God is in the center.
Third, Satan
shows Jesus the whole world in its glory and tells Jesus that he will give it
all to Him if he just worships Satan.
Notice that Jesus doesn’t focus on the fact that all of creation is already
under God’s hand. Jesus focuses in on
the centrality of God. God is our
worship, not the world and the power we wield.
Godly leadership puts God at the center, not ourselves.
To make His
point even clearly, notice the message that Jesus gives to us when He Himself
calls His first disciples. He doesn’t say,
“Come, be great!” He says, “Come, follow
me.” Here is a man who just told Satan
three times over that godly leadership is about taking a backseat to God. And then He calls disciples using the same
consistent message. Godly leadership is first
and foremost about following, not asserting oneself.
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