Pride of Life (The Devil Tempts Jesus – Part 4)

The pride of life is defined as a worldly characteristic which leads a person to be arrogant, boastful, conceited and reliant on one’s own wisdom rather than on God.

Matthew 4:5-7 NKJV
Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'”
Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’

Even the devil can quote scripture in order to tempt somebody. When the devil quotes scripture though, he will quote the Bible out of context with the aim of deceiving people, including Christians.
By trying to tempt Jesus to jump off the temple, the devil wanted Jesus to test God’s love and God’s promises. God does not need to be tested. He is perfect and He keeps His promises. Testing God would imply that we know better than God. Testing God would also imply that we believe God is imperfect or that we have doubts about God’s sincerity and whether God is able to accomplish certain things on our behalf.

Genesis 3:4-6
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

Even when Adam and Eve was tempted, the devil made Eve doubt God’s sincerity and character by insinuating to Eve that God doesn’t want them to be like Him nor for them to have wisdom or knowledge of good and evil. Therefore Eve succumbed to temptation when she thought the fruit from the tree would make her wise. Basically, she thought that God was hiding information from her and she had to test and see if God was telling the truth or not.
Anytime you think you know better than God, you fall into temptation. Anytime you think you know better than God you give in to the pride of life.

In order to avoid falling into the temptation of the pride of life, we always need to have a humble attitude. We also need to remember that God knows MORE than we do, and therefore when He gives us instruction through His word, we must BELIEVE Him and not look for ways to doubt or test His sincerity.

Jesus knew that there would be no glory to God if He were listen to the devil by jumping off that temple. The situation was not conducive or appropriate for Him to do so. The motive would be self-centred and wrong and God would not be glorified. Therefore Jesus response to the devil was appropriate “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’